16 health facilities chosen as Covid-19 vaccination centres by NMS

Nairobi’s Mama Lucy, Pumwani and Mbagathi Hospitals are among city facilities that have been selected to offer immunization of the Covid-19 vaccine.

This comes as the Nairobi Metropolitan Services is set to launch the immunization process next week.

NMS director for health Josephine Kibaru-Mbae on Friday told the Star that immunization will take place in both Public and Private Health facilities.

“Once Nairobi receive its share, we shall do the launching next week. The immunization process will start with the county’s main big level four hospitals,” She said.

In a vaccine roll-out document seen by the Star, nine public hospitals, four faith-based organizations and three private health centres have been proposed by NMS as Covid-19 vaccination centres.

Public Hospitals include Level 4 ( Mama Lucy, Pumwani, Mbagathi, Memorial and  Moi Airbase; Level 6 ( KNH, Mathari, National Spinal Injury and Kenyatta University teaching Referral).

The faith-based organized facilities include Level 4 ( Jamaa Mission Hospital, Coptic and Ruaka Uhai Neema Hospitals); Level 5 includes the Mater Misericordiae Hospital.

The other private hospitals are Level 4 St Francis Community Hospital and Level 5 Aga Khan and Nairobi hospitals.

Over one million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 vaccine arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on Wednesday.

The doses are part of an initial allocation of 3.56 million doses.

Nairobi has remained the epicentre of the highly infectious disease since March 13, 2020, when the first case of the virus was recorded in Kenya.

This led to President Uhuru Kenyatta on April 7, 2021 issue containment orders for Nairobi County in an attempt to curb the spread of Covid-19.

Dr Mbae revealed that the targeted hospitals have been preparing and are ready to receive the vaccines  

“As NMS we have been making sure that the fridges and storage facilities for the vaccines are well in place at the hospitals in order to receive the vaccines,” she said.

NMS also confirmed that staff at the health facilities conducting the immunization have already been trained by the Ministry of Health.

"All health workers in both public and private hospitals in Nairobi will get the vaccine first," Mbae added.

The government has maintained frontline will be the top priority when the administration of the Covid-19 vaccine is rolled out.

Health CS Mutahi Kagwe said the vaccination process will start with the 400,000 health care workers, followed by other front-line workers like police and teachers.

"We need a priority list because we cannot vaccinate everybody at the same time. After the health workers are vaccinated the process can be rolled out to the general population," he said.

Kagwe said once frontline workers are done with, those with comorbidity will be considered before the vaccination process is finally rolled out to the general population.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine requires two doses, given four weeks apart, to prime the immune system to fight off the coronavirus.

Initially, it was revealed that the cost of the Covid AstraZeneca vaccine would be Sh 760 ($7) but Health officials clarified on Wednesday that the $7 was only a 'working figure.

Willis Akhwale, chair of the Covid-19 task force for vaccine deployment, Wednesday told the Star the estimate was arrived at in January when the state was unsure which vaccine it would get and the exact cost.

“It is a planning cost and it is not final. The Covax estimates for most vaccines were between $6 to $8 and so we pegged our working figure at an average of $7,” he said.