As of this morning, Monday 23 August, 880,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine, acquired by the United States Government through the Covax programme, which aims to vaccinate the populations of developing countries and in particular those of African states, are also available in Kenya.
The vaccines are expected in the early hours of today at the JKIA airport in Nairobi and are the first batch of 1.7 million vaccines donated by the Americans in Kenya, to which will be added about 400,000 doses from Johnson & Johnson that should arrive next week.
Last week, Kenya already received 407,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine donated by the British government. Vaccines donated through the Covax facility and transported by Unicef have arrived at JKIA, bringing the total number of vaccines recently donated to Kenya by the UK to 817,000 doses.
According to the Ministry of Health, another 400,000 doses from Canada and a consignment of Pfizer vaccines from Washington are expected to arrive in Nairobi in mid-September.
These numbers are encouraging, but still a long way from the country's goal of vaccinating at least 10 million people by the end of this year and 26 million adults by June 2022.
Vaccinations in the African country are currently travelling at a tortoise's pace, increasing by a maximum of 0.1% per day. Today, 3% of citizens should be fully covered with two doses.
The government's hope is to trigger a virtuous process that can convince western nations that Kenya is willing to reopen the bilateral corridors, at least among those who are vaccinated. But the urgency is to sensitise people to go to health facilities where they can be given the vaccine, without fear and convinced that they are doing their part to return the country to normality.