Kenya receives 880,000 doses of Moderna vaccine from US Government

This is the first shipment of 1.76 million doses of the Moderna vaccine. [Saada Hassan, Standard]

Kenya has this morning received 880,460 doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. The vaccines were donated by the United States Government through the COVAX facility.

The Ministry of Health said this is the first shipment of 1.76 million doses of the Moderna vaccine.

“The government plans to vaccinate 10 million people by close of the year with 26 million people expected to have been vaccinated by the end of next year. Already 2.9 per cent of the entire adult population has been vaccinated,” said the Ministry of Health.

The vaccines were received by Health Principal Secretary Susan Mochache at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

She announced the increase of vaccination centres from the current 800 to 3,000.

She said the ministry targets to vaccinate at least 150,000 people a day after receiving freezers with a 3 million dose capacity.

The Moderna Vaccine doses, donated by the US government, is the second vaccine in Kenya’s programme after AstraZeneca with at least 1,615,687 people having received one dose and 780,377 fully vaccinated by August 22, 2021.

Kenya has so far received a total of 3.6 million Covid-19 vaccines.

1,130,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines have been donated by the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and France.

1.6 million doses of Pfizer vaccines are scheduled to be delivered mid next month.

Pfizer vaccine was approved for emergency use in December and has been available for people aged 12 years and above.