Kenya among 92 middle-income countries to get cheap COVID-19 vaccine

The Melinda Gates Foundation and The Vaccine Alliance have contracted Serum Institute of India (SII) to accelerate the manufacture of 100 million doses of safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines for low- and middle-income countries in 2021, according to a news report by Daily Nation.

Kenya is among 92 low-and-middle-income countries that are set to benefit from a low-cost COVID-19 vaccine that is currently on trial from 2021.

The vaccines will be made available to nations included in GAVI's new financing instrument aimed at encouraging manufacturers to produce sufficient quantities of eventual COVID-19 vaccines and to ensure access for developing countries.

The alliance is also accelerating the delivery of the vaccines which will be priced at USD3 per dose (Sh300).

The Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC), the new financing instrument, is currently seeking at least 2 billion dollars in initial seed funding. "We will meet at least part of the cost of procurement for the vaccine doses," the organization stated.

"Too many times we've seen the most vulnerable countries left at the back of the queue when it comes to new treatments, new diagnostics, and new vaccines," said Dr. Seth Berkley, the CEO of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.

Among the vaccines which SII will be manufacturing will be AstraZeneca's ChAdOx1 and Novavax's antigen vaccine- the NVX-CoV2373.