The international community is starting to get impatient with Kenya for the slowness and disorganization of its vaccination campaign.
A developing country with great economic involvement and stalled sectors such as tourism, can not afford to sit at the window and wait for someone to donate vaccines and organize the process of immunization of Kenyans.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Health, between proclamations and promises, waiting for supplies and entire areas of the country not covered, with no serious information and awareness campaign for citizens, since the arrival of the first vaccines in the country, last March, has fully vaccinated just over 2% of the population, with some counties, such as Marsabit, which are below 0.5%, according to a report prepared by the same Ministry.
The arrival in Kenya of the delta variant from India has further complicated matters, because Kenya has been included in the countries that have this mutation of the virus in progress and therefore are even more under observation.
The United States, the top nation for influx of travelers, whether for tourism, business or international organizations to Kenya, last week upgraded Kenya to a level 3 travel alert, going back to advising its citizens not to travel there at this time.
Great Britain, on the other hand, has confirmed Kenya on its Covid-19 "red list", reporting a greater danger for the African nation than even India. Reason? Precisely the speed with which Asians are proceeding with the immunization of their own people.
At the beginning of this week, Germany also took a step backwards with respect to Kenya, despite the optimistic openings of recent months that had, among other things, led the national airline Lufthansa to open the route to Mombasa. Now Germany, which on principle does not ban travel but strongly discourages it, has re-established the isolation and quarantine regime for those returning from Kenya, discouraging tour operators from betting on its tourist destinations.
This overlapping of decisions against Kenya should make the government in Nairobi reflect, because other countries could soon be added, as warned by the national press, to the list of those who consider Kenya taboo.
As far as we are concerned, with an international situation of this kind, it is currently unthinkable that Italy, from next August 30, can reopen to tourist travel to Kenya and consequently abolish the 10-day quarantine on return.
The slow pace of the vaccination process is reported as the main problem, in addition to poor enforcement of the restrictions by the majority of Kenyans and "a potent mix of ignorance, lack of easy access, myths, misinformation and traditional and religious beliefs" that according to an editorial in the Daily Nation newspaper "is derailing the adoption of AstraZeneca's vaccine."
The situation is not only backfiring on tourism, according to the newspaper, many Kenyans who have business, study and emotional relationships with Europe have since last June been refused residence visas by the embassies of nations to which they had applied and which had not denied travel in the past.
"Such travel restrictions are likely to hurt businesses and hit the economy, with sources of foreign currency earnings, such as tourism, likely to remain on ice." Reports the Daily Nation, reporting the words of Dr. Willis Akhwale, chair of the Kenyan Vaccine Task Force, who calls the situation pure geopolitics.
"Our current goal is to vaccinate as much as possible," Akhwale explained, "We expect more doses of J&J by the 23rd or 24th of this month, although the Covax program has yet to tell us exactly how many doses.
According to experts and analysts of geopolitics, Kenya must ensure as soon as possible that citizens are vaccinated in order to have international mobility and especially a country that depends heavily on tourism should do so even faster".