Health Cabinet Secretary (CS) Mutahi Kagwe has warned that no vaccinations should take place outside the Ministry of Health (MoH) designated vaccination sites.
Kagwe said that these sites are available at the MoH website and if there are any outreach programmes being conducted, they must be carried out from the approved vaccination posts, for both the public and private health facilities.
Addressing the press at Afya house, Kagwe said that MoH working in collaboration with county health teams are solely responsible for the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. This is because they have to ensure the maintenance of the cold chain system and the potency of the vaccines.
“Vaccines which are not stored in the established cold chain facilities and transported to vaccine posts as per the established protocols, are likely to lose potency and will not be of use to those who receive such vaccinations,” said the CS.
He insisted that administration of any vaccine should only be done by a qualified and duly registered clinician or nursing staff. These staff must also have received recent training in the administration of the vaccine.
“Any other person doing so will be in contravention of the law. Vaccinations that are not properly administered will lead to unnecessary side effects that could potentially result in deaths,” warned Kagwe.
The CS said that the Ministry of Health is continuing to monitor the situation with regard to cases of Covid-19 in the country as the number of cases in the last week had been rising with the positivity rate hitting close to 13 per cent.
“However, towards the weekend the positivity rate has started to come down. Today we have recorded a positivity rate of 9.7 per cent. Whereas this might seem like good news, we however urge Kenyans to exercise a lot of caution in terms of our behavior towards this virus. We must not attempt to lower our guard. There is need to continue adhering strictly to the containment measures that we have advised if we are to win this war against this disease,” said Kagwe.
He added that the government has been carrying out a robust vaccination campaign against the Coronavirus disease and has so far administered over 2.8 million doses, with slightly over 800,000 Kenyans being fully vaccinated.
“We continue to appeal to our people in the priority groups that we have listed to take advantage of this campaign and get vaccinated. Vaccination against this virus as we have stated many times is the way to go, if we have to curtail the spread of this virus. Until everyone is safe, none of us is safe,” he said.
Kagwe said that they have noticed that some politicians have begun to politicize the vaccination process for their own political gains insisting that this is not only immoral but unacceptable, and very disturbing and it has the potential of endangering the lives of our people.
“The Ministry of Health therefore would like to issue a very stern warning to any persons with intentions to pilfer vaccines from Government facilities, that they will face the full force of the law. I also warn any health worker not to collude with outsiders to issue them with vaccines without the authority of the Ministry of Health. Such a situation will lead to immediate disciplinary action,” said Kagwe.
The CS highlighted that all vaccines in Kenya are procured by the Government of Kenya and offered free of charge. Therefore, all vaccines issued to counties and health facilities must be accounted for. A weekly county logistics report must be submitted outlining doses received, doses used, dose balances and number of people vaccinated.
“Any facility that will not account for doses issued will not be issued with any more vaccine doses and will be delisted. At the same time any private facility that will be involved in any impropriety will be deregistered with immediate effect. In this regard, I hereby direct the Kenya Medical and Dentists’ Council to continuously investigate vaccination processes and take legal action against facilities and practitioners as necessary where malpractice is detected,” said Kagwe.
By Joseph Ng’ang’a
