Vaccine donation timely

What you need to know:

  • One laudable innovation is the portal that sends out a message once a person gets the first jab and an invitation to turn up for the second one.
  • Unfortunately, due to the shortage, many of the people waiting for their second doses have not yet received the notification.

Just as despair was setting in over the shortage of Covid-19 vaccines, there is hope of Kenyans getting the life-saving jabs. These are, especially, frontline workers — health workers, security personnel and teachers — who had been chosen to get the jabs first because of their exposure to the deadly respiratory disease in their line of duty.

Many of them turned up for the first dose and were waiting for their second when a major manufacturer, India, in response to an upsurge in infections in its territory, suspended vaccine exports. This somewhat destabilised the impressive arrangements the Health ministry had made.

Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe and his team had done exemplary planning and organisation only to be confronted by this external challenge. One laudable innovation is the portal that sends out a message once a person gets the first jab and an invitation to turn up for the second one. Unfortunately, due to the shortage, many of the people waiting for their second doses have not yet received the notification.

Donations of vaccines

However, Kenya has just got a shot in the arm with a donation from Denmark of 358,700 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to boost its second round of Covid-19 inoculation. The drugs have arrived in Nairobi and the authorities should quickly revitalise the campaign. Kenya sought Danish help a month ago.

There was also an assurance at the recent G7 Summit that the low- and middle-income nations would be supported to fight the pandemic with donations of vaccines. This solidarity is a plus for humanity, and it’s only fair that the donations are dispensed to ease access to the jabs so as to roll back the health scourge and boost economic recovery.

It’s annoying that some Kenyans have no scruples profiteering from the pain and agony of others. There’s a racket in which some crooked health workers have been extorting up to Sh1,000 from people desperately seeking the second jab. This is terrible, considering that the jabs are given free of charge as a public service. These racketeers must not only be stopped but held to account. Every Kenyan deserves the jab.