Counties urged to ramp up Covid vaccinations to hit Mashujaa target

Counties have been asked to accelerate the Covid-19 vaccination exercise so that Kenya can reach its target of inoculating 5.8 million people.

The Ministry of Health had said it aimed to vaccinate 5.8 million Kenyans by today.

But as of yesterday, only 4.6 million doses had been administered, with 3.3 million partially vaccinated and 1.2 fully vaccinated. This means that counties have less than 24 hours to vaccinate about 1.2 million people to meet the target.

“Counties need to play a bigger role in ensuring that we meet this target by ensuring that they conduct a vigorous campaign to have people vaccinated,” said Dr Willis Akhwale, the Covid-19 vaccines task force chairman.

“Even if we do not hit the 5.8 million target, I am happy that we shall be doing a good number of vaccinations in a day. We will hit our target of vaccinating 100,000 people a day.”

7.5 million doses

On Monday, 70,000 people were vaccinated. That is a “sign that all is okay,” Dr Akhwale added.

Kenya has received 7.5 million doses of various vaccines, and is expecting 500,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson on Thursday, one million of Pfizer by October 22 and 800,000 of AstraZeneca from the Covax programme by the end of the month.

“We have enough doses of vaccines and I don’t see why people should not get vaccinated. Counties with higher populations need to play a bigger role on this,” he said.

Once the drive in the densely populated counties is heightened, he said, the country will be safe as more people will be vaccinated, meaning fewer severe cases with low-impact waves.

The government aims to vaccinate a total of 27.2 million people by the end of the year.

Leading

Nairobi County leads in the proportion of fully vaccinated people (15 per cent) followed by Nyeri (12 per cent), Kiambu (7.3 per cent), Uasin Gishu (7 per cent), Nyandarua and Kisumu (6 per cent), Mombasa (5.4 per cent) and Laikipia (5 per cent)

Lamu, Turkana, Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Tana River and Marsabit have the lowest numbers of people that are fully vaccinated.

Of those who have received only the first dose, Nairobi still leads at 32 per cent while Marsabit has the lowest number (1.4 per cent).

By age group, those aged 30-39 are the majority among the vaccinated (860,852), followed by 40-49 (750,056), 18-29 (668,816) and 50-59 (570,175).

The elderly are lagging behind with those between 60 and 69 at 374,649 while those aged 70 years and above are 240,745 even though the government had prioritised these age groups.

“We are yet to point to a reason why vaccination in this group is challenging. It could be because of the technical hitches, but once we crack it, I am optimistic that the numbers will increase,” Dr Akhwale said

Healthcare workers lead in the category of those fully vaccinated followed by teachers and those above 58 years old.

At least 252,066 Kenyans have tested positive for the virus from over 2.6 million tested. On Monday, only 33 people tested positive for the disease from 3,530 samples, with the positivity rate now at 0.9 per cent.

Doing well

Some 5,224 Kenyans have died from Covid-19 while 245,347 have recovered since the virus was first reported in the country 18 months ago.

“From a positivity rate of over 15 per cent to less than 1 percent, it means we are doing well, though Kenyans need to be vaccinated so that we can maintain the percentage.

“The lower the positivity rate, the easier it will be to deal with the virus,” said Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe.