No child will receive the much anticipated Covid-19 vaccine once it is available in the country, the Health Ministry has said.
Health CAS Mercy Mwangangi said that the two approved vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna were not tested on children in the trial phase thus are only eligible for adult use.
Mwangangi also noted that the children would not be considered among the first to get the vaccine even if they were eligible as they are not within the category of those classified as highly vulnerable.
She further revealed that the country has ordered 24 million vaccine doses.
The doses, the Health Ministry says, will be distributed first to the frontline workers and those in the vulnerable bracket.
Also categorised as frontline workers are teachers, meaning they will also be part of those receiving vaccines once they are available.
Last month, Acting Director-General Public Health Patrick Amoth said the government will start administering the Covid-19 vaccine in the first quarter of 2021.
Amoth said the government had singled out one vaccine that has attained all the trial parameters set.
Amoth said the AstraZeneca vaccine is already registered for use and that the country was part to its clinical trials in the Kilifi Wellcome Trust Research Programme.
The acting DG said the vaccine has shown good efficacy and will be one of the frontline vaccines that will be used in the country.
He further pointed out that the country is set to receive 24 million doses of the vaccine under the Covax facility to which Kenya is a signatory.
The facility brings together over 189 countries in search of one common vaccine.
The beneficiaries of the vaccine will be the 430,000 frontline health workers, in both public and private facilities representing one per cent of the total population.
The second cluster of beneficiaries will be those over 50 years old who tend to contract the more severe form of the disease and are about 5.3 million an equivalent of 10 per cent of the general population.
The government will also prioritise about 4.4 million Kenyans with pre-existing conditions who represent 8 per cent of the population.
About 830,000 Teachers and uniformed security forces will then be considered, bringing the total figure of the initial vaccinations to about 21 per cent.