Kenya to get Covid vaccines from South Sudan

By Rhoda Odhiambo

Kenya will receive 72,000 of Covid-19 vaccines from the Covax facility this week.

The vaccines were re-distributed from South Sudan after the country’s health officials said they could not use the jabs before their expiry date.

South Sudan received 132,000 Astra Zeneca doses from Covax in late March.

The country’s Health Minister Mayen Machout told journalists that they were not able to use all the doses because of delays by parliament to approve the use of the vaccine.

“We also noticed that some health workers did not want to get vaccinated and a lot of time was spent training people how to give the jabs,” Dr Machout said.

South Sudan will be left with 52,000 doses that it hopes to use before they expire on 18 July, AFP news agency reports.

In April, South Sudan said it was planning to get rid of 60,000 expired vaccines that came as a donation through the African Union.

This article was originally published by BBC News. [Photo: Getty Images]