Kenya has reiterated her commitment to ensuring a smooth transition from Gavi support for the national vaccination programme.
The Kenyan government is now exploring various grant opportunities to support the transition.
This includes the Health System Strengthening (HSS) and the Equity Accelerator Fund (EAF) grant.
The HSS and EAF grant may require the establishment of a well-staffed National Vaccines and Immunization Programme (NVIP) and project management unit.
Kenya may also be eligible to apply for the Cold Chain Equipment Optimization Platform (CCEOP) grant, which requires a co-payment of more than Sh300 million.
This comes as the PS Medical Services Peter Tum met with Gavi Senior Country Manager Billie-Jean Nieuwenhuys on Thursday.
The discussion focused on the transition from Gavi support as well as the Gavi full portfolio plan, which will be aligned with government priorities to support reaching unvaccinated populations.
“The government is exploring all available options to ensure the continued success of its national vaccination programme,” Tum said.
Kenya has been a beneficiary of Gavi Support since 2001, receiving approximately Sh94.7 billion in vaccines and related supplies.
Gavi has played an instrumental role in Kenya's vaccination programme, including funding for malaria vaccine introduction into routine immunisation.
Gavi also supported the introduction of the Cholera oral vaccine in the country as Kenya battles an outbreak that has so far claimed 121 lives.
However, the country is now seeking alternative sources of funding as it accelerates its transition from Gavi support by 2030.
Kenya is facing deep cuts in donor funding to health programmes.
This is a headache for the new regime with the most affected being financing for family planning, HIV, malaria and TB programmes, which are heavily donor reliant.
This is because donors have been forcing Kenya to foot its health bill by gradually reducing aid. After all, it is now a middle-income country.
“In the initial plan we were to have 100 per cent funding from the government for our family planning commodities but because of the Covid-19 pandemic’s economic impact we have requested to push this to 2025/26, two years forward,” Issak Bashir said at a past event.
Bashir is the head of the Department of Family Health at the Ministry of Health.
Family planning in Kenya is financed largely by donors from the UK, United States and Germany.
Studies show Kenya faces serious donor dependency in its health system.
External financing makes up more than half of all funding for immunizations, tuberculosis and HIV, where for every dollar spent by the Kenyan government on immunizations, TB, and HIV, donors spend 3.3, 2.8, and 1.7 additional dollars respectively.
The United States President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) is also reducing its financing to Kenya.
Four donors make up nearly 90 per cent of all health official development assistance.
These are the United States (62 per cent), the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria (18 per cent), the United Kingdom (five per cent), and Gavi (four per cent).