The ongoing vaccination program has received a boost after Kenya received 795,600 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from the US government.
The consignment arrived at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) on Friday afternoon and was received by Health Ministry officials and Eric Kneedler, the Chargé d’Affaires ad interim at the US Embassy in Nairobi.
This is the first batch of the 2.03 million shots of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine the US government has pledged to donate to Kenya.
Pfizer becomes the fourth coronavirus vaccine to arrive in Kenya after AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.
1,236,690 more doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine are expected to arrive in the country in the coming weeks, with a shipment of 245,700 Pfizer landing during the week of September 20th while the remaining 990,990 does will arrive at the end of this month.
“The vaccines arriving today are the same safe and effective Pfizer vaccines that have been used to vaccinate millions of people in the United States and around the world. We expect additional shipments of Pfizer doses to arrive next week and in the coming weeks,” said Kneedler.
In August, Kenya received the first batch of the Moderna vaccine from the US and a second shipment last week, completing the 1.76 million donation of Moderna doses.
US President Joe Biden pledged to deliver more than a billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines to countries across the world.
Kenya has so far administered about 3.3 million vaccines of which 2,439,528 are first doses while second doses are 850,922.
