Why more Kenyans may miss crucial Covid vaccine

Kenya’s dream to vaccinate at least 25 million people before the end of the year has suffered a fresh blow after plans to directly acquire vaccines from manufacturers hit a snag.

The government says a severe shortage of Covid-19 vaccines globally has seen it put on ice plans to buy Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and AstraZeneca vaccine from Serum Institute of India.

The new orders were to add to the Covax and Africa CDC doses to help achieve the inoculation targets set by the Health ministry.

Initially, the plan was to vaccinate 1.25 million people between February and June in the first phase, 9.7 million between July 2021 and June 2022 and 4.9 million Kenyans in the third phase which was slated to run concurrently with phase two— totaling to 15.85 million people, so as to achieve a 30-percent immunity.

The target was, however, revised upwards to 25 million people before the end of 2021, and 26 million by the end of 2022 and without any other option to ramp up vaccine supplies, the two goals are likely to be missed.

Dr Willis Akhwale, the chairman of the National Taskforce on Vaccine Deployment, yesterday told the Nation that besides India and Western powers stopping vaccine exports, world’s biggest vaccine collaboration— Gavi Alliance’s Covax Facility and the Africa CDC— have acquired most of the doses at the Serum Institute— making it hard for individual countries to place direct orders.

“It is going to be challenging, this is an option but for latter days. The direct bilateral is currently out of question because the vaccines are overbooked and we cannot compete with Covax,” he said.

The only available vaccine that Kenya could procure directly is Pfizer but the country does not have facilities to store the jabs in bulk at between -60 and -80 degrees Celsius.

A source at the Health ministry yesterday told the Nation that they were considering investing in cold chains to acquire and store the delicate jabs.

“We are currently looking into financial and legal negotiations,” the source who is not authorised to speak to the media said without elaborating further, citing confidentiality.

Last week, Dr Akhwale said the government was working towards procuring other vaccines in addition to the AstraZeneca “as long as they meet our regulatory standards and requirements, and for that matter those of the World Health Organisation.”

This comes at a time when Kenya is expecting 2.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine at least by the end of May, just in time for the second jab for people who received the first dose.

The SII, the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer at a billion vials per month, is the largest supplier to the Covax Facility.

But with India recording Covid-19 surges, SII stopped exports of the vaccine for a month so that Delhi can vaccinate its vulnerable population first.

It is expected that India will lift the ban on exports next month.

“We are constant touch, the delay was for about one month and they continue to assure us that we will get the vaccine in May,” said Dr Akhwale.

Apart from SII other vaccines manufacturers supplying Covax include Pfizer-BioNTech, Novavax, Johnson and Johnson and the Sanofi-GSK.

Although Moderna has not committed any shots to the facility, it is expected to start contributing soon, according to the Gavi Vaccine Alliance.

Through the facility, Kenya is acquiring Covid-19 vaccines— regardless of the manufacturer— at Sh770 per dose.

But this may change if and when the government decides to buy the vaccines from the manufacturers directly.

At the current exchange rate, two doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine are going for Sh2,106 to the Covax Facility, while in the international market they cost Sh4,212.

Moderna’s regimen is selling at Sh3,456 a dose, Sh1,080 for J & J’s single shot and while AstraZeneca is going for Sh500.

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