Kenya targets 10 percent COVID-19 vaccine wastage

Kenya is targeting to record an average wastage rate of 10 percent or less in the ongoing coronavirus vaccination process, according to the national taskforce on vaccine deployment and vaccination.

The taskforce is thus urging health workers to strictly follow guidelines on use of the vaccines to avoid unnecessary wastage.

"Should a half-used vial of vaccine reach the discard time, the remaining doses will be discarded and recorded as a wastage. This wastage is monitored on daily basis," the taskforce said in a statement.

While giving a clarification on the variance in the number of doses administered in some counties, the taskforce said although each vial or the container holding the vaccine doses contains at least the number of doses stated, it is possible to withdraw additional doses depending on vial size.

This followed questions over how Nyeri county in Kenya's central region, which had received 23,500 Covishield vaccine doses, had managed to vaccinate 23,733 people by close of business.

The taskforce said some manufacturers include some 'overage' or extra quantity in a vial to cater for losses when vaccines are being drawn into syringes.

"Depending on the type of syringes used, the remaining quantity in the vial may yield one or two extra doses. This has been observed during use of the Covishield vaccine in Kenya," the taskforce said.

It said a similar scenario has been observed in other countries conducting coronavirus vaccination, such as the United States, due to the use of low dead volume syringes.

This in effect leads to a negative wastage rate where more people are vaccinated from one vial than the expected number of doses.

The team tasked with the national deployment and vaccination plan said a follow up at one facility in Kenya found that at least one extra dose could be extracted from a vial.

"While the manufacturer does not assure an extra dose for every vial, the high demand of the vaccine means that these extra doses can be used to vaccinate more eligible people. In practice however, the health workers do not 'pool' extra doses from other vials, to ensure safety guidelines are adhered to," the taskforce said.

Each vial of the Indian-made Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine marketed as Covishield, which Kenya has been using, contains 10 doses.

Since the inoculation exercise kicked off over a month ago, over 651,650 people have received the Covishield vaccine in the country, according to the Ministry of Health.

Those aged older than 58 constitute the bulk of those who have received the jab, with 365,178 of those within the age bracket already vaccinated.

Of those who have been vaccinated, 136,084 are healthcare workers, 97,786 are teachers and 52,602 are security officers.

The Ministry of Health said men continue to exhibit greater enthusiasm than women in being vaccinated against coronavirus, constituting 56 percent of those vaccinated.

Nairobi county has utilized the highest number of doses, with 284,506 distributed doses and 207,926 persons having been vaccinated.

Kenya received 1.02 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines on March 3, as part of the Covax facility, a global initiative working with governments and manufacturers to ensure coronavirus vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries. The country also received 100,000 donations by the government of India.

Kenya is currently experiencing the third wave of the coronavirus outbreak, characterized by the emergence and spread of variant strains.

As of Tuesday, the east African country had recorded a total of 151,894 coronavirus infection cases and 2,501 deaths.