Kenya's walking nurses bring virus vaccine to the interior

In western Kenya, the Covis-19 vaccination drive is picking up at a faster rate especially in the remote areas that are seemingly far from the hospitals.

Villagers are now able to get the jab without necessarily going to the vaccination centres.

Healthcare workers walk from village to village in a mobile vaccination drive to reach people who live far from health facilities.

"It is hard for us to leave the village to reach the hospital because we don't have money to travel, and sometimes we don't have time. So they have really done us a great favour and helped to make things easier for us here," Leah Okada, vaccine recipient in Nyambare village said.

" We started yesterday and today we are at three hundred and something numbers, around 350 in total and we are still going on. From here we are going to another village and throughout the week we will still be having more villages to go to," Harriet Awuor, a nurse from Siaya County Hospital said.

Kenya’s vaccination drive has been progressing at a slower pace due to the lack of sufficient doses of the vaccine.

The East African country has vaccinated less than 2 percent of its population.

Kenya began vaccinating its population in March after getting 1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from India. Many people especially the old are hoping they will get vaccinated faster given that the country is almost beginning its fourth wave of the pandemic.

Kenya recently confirmed that they are yet to secure the second consignment in June.

" I have been wondering when the vaccine will reach me. I was just hearing over the radio and did not know whether it will reach those in the rural areas," Rosemary Aluoch, vaccine recipient in Lunyu village said.

More than 1.5 billion doses of anti-Covid vaccines have been injected into people's arms around the world, six months after the vaccination drive started, according to an AFP count.  So far in Kenya, 950,000 people have received the jab that gives them protection from the coronavirus.

Kenya has recorded 113,000 COVID-19 cases and about 3,000 deaths.