Ministry warns of severe Covid among unvaccinated

The Health Ministry has warned of severe Covid-19 attack for the unvaccinated or those yet to get booster shots in case of another wave.

The ministry rolled out booster shots on January 1 with data showing that 118,969 jabs have been administered out of an eligible 390,000 as per the records.

A booster shot is an additional dose of a vaccine given after the protection provided by the original shot(s)  decreases over time.

It tricks the immune system into seeing another pathogen, so antibody-producing cells, and other immune cells, are triggered.

But the ministry has expressed concern that the uptake of vaccines has rescinded in January, possibly due to a decline in Covid-19 infections and positivity rate.

“Booster doses are very important because this pandemic is not yet over and science has shown us that the immunity wanes six months after the second dose,” vaccines deployment task force chair Willis Akhwale said.

“What it means is that if you are going to get another infection you are likely to get a breakthrough infection and that can put you at risk of being admitted because of severe disease,” he added.

This comes even as vaccine manufacturers begun clinical trials on new vaccines to target the Omicron variant that has so far become the predominant strain across the world, including in Kenya.

They include the Pfizer and BioNTech that is testing a new vaccine in more than 1,400 adults in the US as a booster jab and as three separate jabs in unvaccinated people.

The Oxford University and AstraZeneca have also started working on a new version of their vaccine while US Company Moderna is planning to begin trials of its own Omicron-specific shot soon.

"Staying vigilant against the virus requires us to identify new approaches for people to maintain a high level of protection,” head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer Kathrin Jansen said on Tuesday.

Data from the ministry shows that as at Monday, 11.6 million vaccines had so far been administered across the country; 6.3 million being  partial vaccinations, 5.1 million full vaccinations while another 36,945 are doses administered to those between 15 to 18 years.

So far, Kenya has received 24.6 million vaccines mostly from bilateral donations with the US government donating close to eight million doses to date.

“From our records, 390,000 people are eligible for a booster shot during the month of January. Many of the 370,000 are mainly our frontline workers, health workers, security forces, teachers and people in the hospitality industry,” Akhwale noted.

“For Johnson and Johnson we started administering in September so the earliest a booster dose for those who have received JJ will be beginning of March but for those who had received their second dose by June 30 they are now supposed to get their booster before the end of January.”

On the booster shots, Wajir is yet to administer a single dose while Mandera, Lamu, Tana River, Garissa, Marsabit Turkana, West Pokot and Samburu have administered just 10, 12, 26, 36, 39, 81, 100 and 104 doses.

On the other hand compared Nairobi has administered the highest number of booster shots at 56,058 followed by Nakuru with 8,481, Uasin Gishu with 5,921, Kiambu with 5,802 and Mombasa with 5,084.