False: Kenya will not wait to conduct the BBI Referendum to order covid-19 vaccines

A Facebook post claiming that Kenya will order Covid-19 vaccines after the BBI referendum is FALSE.

The post reads “Somalia, has already ordered for the new covid vaccine. Somalia of all the countries. Huku Kenya we will order after we are done with BBI.”

While the government of Kenya has procured the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, no fixed date for their delivery has been announced.

According to cabinet secretary for health, Mutahi Kagwe, Kenya has ordered 24 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19.

The first batch of the Covid-19 vaccine is expected to arrive in the country in the second week of February.

Kenya which has an estimated population of 53 million has recorded 98,555 cases of covid-19 from a sample size of over 1 million since the pandemic began.

CS Kagwe stated that priority for vaccination will be given to health care workers, teachers and law enforcement officers among other essential workers.

The CS Kagwe did not disclose the cost the government incurred to procure the vaccines, however, the Health Ministry has set aside Ksh.10 billion to procure more doses to vaccinate an additional 10 percent of the population during the first of the year.

Kenya through the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) has been collaborating with Oxford and the vaccine trial is currently ongoing at the Kemri-Wellcome Trust Research Programme facility in Kilifi.

Furthermore, the health CS opined that it was only ideal to use more than one vaccine with the aim to optimize chances of efficacy. He stated the country was looking into other vaccines such as the China sinopharm vaccine and Pfizer amongst other vaccines approved by the World Health Organization.

Sky FM has looked into the Facebook post claiming that Kenya will only order the covid-19 vaccines after it has completed the BBI referendum and finds it to be false.