Kenya receives first shipment of Moderna vaccines from the US

Officials in Kenya arrived at Jomo Kenyatta airport in Naoirobi on Monday to see the first donated doses of Moderna vaccines from the United States arrive, the first time the vaccine was received in the east African country.

Principal secretary at Kenya's Ministry of Health Susan Mochache said that 880,460 doses were delivered.  She said the shipment is the first of 1.76 million doses donated by the US government through the COVAX facility.  

"With this donation of 880,460 doses of Moderna from United States government, Kenya will now, have received a total of 3.6 million doses of COVID 19 vaccines. Moderna is the second vaccine to be deployed in this country after we started administering AstraZeneca in March this year. ."  Susan Mochache said.

Eric Kneedler, from US Embassy in Kenya said they were the same Moderna vaccines being used to vaccinate Americans in the US.

"The US government will continue to work with the government of Kenya to bring additional life-saving vaccines to Kenya through COVAX and will continue to do all we can to build a world to be safer and more secure against the threat of infectious disease." Kneedler said.

The Moderna doses are set to boost Kenya's ongoing nationwide vaccination exercise, supporting the government’s quest to get at least 10 million adult population vaccinated by December 25.  Mochache also announced the increase of vaccination centres from the current 800 to 3,000 to offer one specific type of vaccine.

“We plan to allocate one vaccine type to each vaccination post. We do not want to have a cross mix of vaccines within facilities so that those designated to offer Pfizer will offer Pfizer, those designated to offer Moderna or AstraZeneca will do so. This will enable people to choose which post to be vaccinated at,” she explained. Approximately 2.9 per cent of the adult population in Kenya has since been fully vaccinated.