By CGTN Africa
Kenya Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe says the country’s COVID-19 vaccination effort has hit a stall with zero new jabs administered over the past three days.
Kagwe’s announcement, made in a statement released on Tuesday, comes a week after it was learned Kenya is running out of COVID-19 doses received in early March through the COVAX Facility program.
The chairman of Kenya’s COVID-19 vaccination taskforce, Dr. Willis Akhwale, in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, said Kenya could exhaust its supply of vaccines as early as next week.
“We have vaccinated close to 940,000 Kenyans, so we don’t have more doses remaining,” he said.
This means less than 2% of Kenyans have received their first jab.
Kenya’s jab came through the AstraZeneca consignment, which was ordered under the WHO’s COVAX program and manufactured by India’s Serum Institute.
However, a few weeks after the consignment arrived in Kenya, India was hit by an aggressive COVID-19 variant that saw its government ban foreign exportation of vaccines.
Kenya has ordered 30 million doses from Johnson & Johnson but those doses are not expected to arrive until August.
Story compiled with assistance from wire reports and the BBC
