7 cases of adverse COVID-19 vaccine side effects being probed: MoH

The Kenya Pharmacy and Poisons Board is currently probing 7 incidents of adverse side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The seven cases are from the 263 that have been reported in the country so far, Health CAS Rashid Aman said on Thursday.

Dr. Aman however did not elaborate on what the adverse side effects were.

196,435 people in the country has so far received their first jab of the COVID-19 vaccine; 111,458 of these are male while 84,977 are female.

Among those who have been inoculated are some 74,698 Health Care Workers, 14,364 security officers and 24,615 teachers.

The Ministry of Health said it was leading the push to identify other sources of the vaccines to mitigate any shortage of supply that may arise in the country through talks with the African Union and vaccine manufacturers.

So far, 800,000 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine have been dispatched countrywide with the balance at the national level being 314,000.

At the regional level, there are some 261,500 doses left while in the sub-county level there are 138,000 vaccines available.

According to the Ministry of Health, some 406,500 doses have been received by other health facilities.

The MoH also announced that 26 million Kenyans are targeted for inoculation by June 2022.

A total of 2.5 million vacccines are expected in the country next month and are expected to boost the second phase of the inoculation.

Kenya will have received about 20 million doses from the COVAX facility by the end of the year.

The latest on the vaccines comes in the backdrop of rising cases in the country with the MoH reporting 984 new infections on Thursday.

The new infections which depict a positivity rate of 18.5% push the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 135,042 and the total number of tests carried out so far to 1,494,777.

The new cases comprise 928 Kenyans and 56 foreigners; 521 are male while 463 are female.

The youngest patient is a six-month-old infant while the oldest is 97.

The Ministry of Health has also announced 388 new recoveries; 314 from the Home Based Care and Isolation and 74 from various hospitals across the country.’At the same time, the death toll as a result of the pandemic in the country has hit 2,167 after 14 new fatalities were announced on Thursday.

The Ministry of Health said the 12 of the fatalities were from late facility record audits done on diverse dates.

Meanwhile, 1,557 patients are currently admitted to various health care facilities across the country while 4,879 are recovering under the Home Based Care and Isolation program.

A further 161 patients are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 48 of whom are on ventilatory support and 104 on supplemental oxygen.