After AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm's Chinese vaccines are also arriving in Kenya.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Health received a first batch of doses (200.000) donated by the Asian country and will decide how and where to use them, like the others that have been deployed in the various counties.
The ministry's chief secretary, Susan Mochache, reiterated that the arrival of the vaccines donated by the Beijing government bears witness to the good relations between the two nations.
In the meantime, Kenya's Medicines Certification Agency had already approved the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm and approved its use for all other vaccines, with the exception of Russia's Sputnik.
"With the arrival of Sinopharm we can intensify Kenya's mission to vaccinate our population," Mochache said, "contain the pandemic and accelerate the return to normalcy. Sinopharm's two-dose formulation, which can be administered in a 28-day interval and stored at temperatures ranging from 2 to 8 degrees Celsius, is ideal for Kenya's cold chain capacity."
Kenya joins Rwanda and Zimbabwe as the only African nations that have so far received the Chinese vaccine.
China has already donated fans, masks and personal protective equipment to Kenya, as well as sharing its knowledge of pandemic control and prevention with the African country.