India resumption of vaccine production a boost in Covid fight
Johnson & Johnson
Kenya’s plan to achieve herd immunity by vaccinating more people against Covid-19 has been boosted by India’s indication that it will resume vaccine contribution to the United Nations-backed Covax facility, for developing countries.
India’s acting High Commissioner to Kenya Ashish Sinah disclosed yesterday that his country is scheduled to resume production of the vaccine for both export and Covax facility .
The envoy said that hoarding of Covid-19 vaccine production ingredients by the developed countries affected his country’s capacity to contribute to the Covax facility.
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“What happened then is that ingredients that go into production of vaccines got stopped by developed countries, and it took some time,” he said at the High Commission’s campus in Nairobi, where he led the Indian Community and other foreign missions in Kenya in marking the country’s 75th independence anniversary.
Announced by President Uhuru Kenyatta on June 29, the plan intends to have 10 million adults vaccinated by the end of this year.
Through the revised vaccine deployment plan, the President said the country should have vaccinated a significant number of people by February next year.
Subsequently, the announcement by the Indian foreign mission is good news to Kenya.
This comes as the number of people infected with Covid-19 dropped considerably yesterday to 789 from Saturday’s 1, 225 positive cases, although the positivity rate climbed.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Health said 5, 498 tests were conducted seeing the positivity rate rising to 14.4 per cent from Saturday’s 13.8 per cent when 8, 877 samples were tested.
“This has pushed the total confirmed positive cases to 220, 727 from 2.2 million cumulative tests so far conducted since last year March,” Health Cabinet Secretary, Mutahi Kagwe said in a day when 21 patients are reported to have died from the disease.
This now pushes the cumulative fatalities to 4, 340.
Nairobi continues to retain top spot as the country’s Covid-19 hotspot with 308 positive cases, about 39 per cent of all the infections recorded between Saturday and yesterday.
