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Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has said that the fight against the covid-19 disease has gone a notch higher, following the arrival of the first batch of the covid-19 vaccines.
Speaking at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) after receiving the first 1 million doses, Kagwe equated the arrival of the vaccines to the acquisition of machine guns and tanks, in the fight against the deadly virus.
He went on to state that what we have been doing, is fighting the virus with rubber bullets, but we now have the real ones.
“We are all very excited about this particular event, receiving the vaccine for the first time in our country. We have been fighting covid-19 with rubber bullets but what we have received here metaphorically speaking, is equivalent to acquisition of machine guns, bazookas and tanks to fight this war against covid-19,” said Mutahi Kagwe.
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The Health Cabinet Secretary noted that the distribution of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine will begin with regional hospitals, down to level 4, level 3 and level 2 hospitals.
Mutahi Kagwe added that on Thursday, he will take interested media houses for a tour of the storage facility in Kitengela, where the vaccines will be taken for storage, from JKIA.
On the rollout of the vaccine, CS Kagwe said; "We are starting with our Health Workers. Kenya has approximately 400,000 health workers. After that we are going to roll out to other frontline workers, we have the police, teachers and other people, then to people with comorbidities, and people with other diseases to protect them. Only then are we going start rolling it out to the rest of the population, we hope Kenyans will understand."
Kenya plans to vaccinate 15.8 million people, which is about 30% of the population, as advised by the World Health organization.