More than 13,000 Kenyan teens have received Pfizer jabs - MoH
At least 13,845 teens aged between 15 and 18 years have received the Covid-19 Pfizer vaccine.
Kenya last month opened up Pfizer vaccines to teens aged between 15 years to 18 years of age after data reviewed by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board found the vaccine to be safe for use in this age group.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that everyone ages five and older get a Covid-19 vaccine to help protect against the disease.
Even though children are at a lower risk of becoming severely ill with Covid-19 compared with adults, vaccinating them helps protect the whole family and slow the spread of the virus in the community.
The Health Ministry has however noted that the vaccines will not be taken to learning institutions, adding that priority still remains reaching the elderly and the vulnerable populations.
“The issue of going to schools may not be immediate now but is a plan as we get more doses and move ahead. Currently, however, the biggest burden is in the elderly so the doses that we currently have, our main focus are actually the elderly,” vaccines deployment taskforce chair Willis Akhwale said.
“However for the young people willing to be vaccinated voluntarily then we have opened this opportunity for them but until we really cover those ones that are when we will fully open it for the teenagers,” he added.
Kenya targets to vaccinate at least 10 million people before the close of this year and the entire adult population of 27 million by end of 2022.
So far, 23 million doses of vaccines have been received in the country with 9.2 million having been administered across the country.
“We are slightly under a million people less of our target of 10 million people which we hope to attain by the end of this month,” Health CAS Mercy Mwangangi said.
Data shows that more than 5.4 million people aged 18 years and above have received their first dose while 3.7 million are fully vaccinated.
Global data shows that 8.47 billion doses of vaccines have been administered with 3.63 billion people having been fully vaccinated. BY THE STAR
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