President Uhuru Kenyatta has said he will fight ‘day and night’ to ensure developing countries are treated equally on vaccine equity.
Speaking to Sky News on Thursday, Uhuru said vaccine nationalism "has really shown how unequal the world is”.
"Where do we get these vaccines from, how are we able to protect our population? This is the fight that's out there,” he said.
Uhuru said this is something that really needs to be looked into.
“Nobody is going to be safe until everybody is safe. We need to come up with a way that there will be vaccine equity,” he said.
He further called for intellectual property rights relating to Covid-19 jabs to be released to allow Kenya to manufacture its own supplies.
“We would do this in Kemri within the shortest time possible,” he said.
"On top of that, they have surpluses but are still not ready to share them with the rest of the world. That is the height, like I said, of nationalism, that really has been felt and this is something that we are fighting and we are going to fight day and night until we ensure that there is equity."
The president was in London to co-host the Global Education Summit with Boris Johnson.
Two days ago, the President secured 817,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines during his trip to London.
The UK government said the vaccines will be shipped in the coming days.
The announcement came as Prime Minister Boris Johnson met Uhuru in Britain.
The nine million shots are the first tranche of the UK's commitment to share 100 million vaccine doses internationally by next June.
Last week, the US president also said 1.7 million doses of Pfizer vaccine donated by the US are expected to arrive in the country in August.
Kenya is among countries that have been hit by vaccine shortage after the Indian government halted vaccine exports due to satisfy domestic demand.
But the Health ministry is yet to decide whether mixing vaccines from different manufacturers will be the next viable option.
The government said it is targeting to have vaccinated at least 13 million Kenyans by December,
Acting Health director-general Patrick Amoth said the Ministry of Health has ordered 13 million doses of single-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine which are expected in the country soon.
The government is currently prioritising second doses for health workers, teachers, other essential workers and people aged 58 and above.