Kenya's 2m jabs just the start

NAIROBI－The number of people in Kenya who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 surpassed 2 million on Saturday, a milestone for the country as it races to give jabs to as many people as possible.

Mutahi Kagwe, cabinet secretary in the Ministry of Health, announced that by Saturday, 2.01 million people had been vaccinated, compared with 1.97 million on Friday. Of these, 1.26 million were first doses, Kagwe said.

The country's vaccination drive picked up in recent days after the government said citizens could get the jabs at designated places.

State agencies and private firms are also fighting vaccine hesitancy by organizing the exercise for their workforce.

The task the country faces is monumental, the aim being to have 26 million people vaccinated by the end of next year.

After a lull of a month or so since Kenya's last wave, positive cases have climbed rapidly this month, with the ministry recording more than 1,000 cases every day. There have been 219,938 infections and 4,319 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the country since the pandemic began.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa reached more than 7.2 million on Sunday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Producing test kits

South Africa has started manufacturing rapid COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, test kits to stop reliance on imports and improve the country's competitiveness, the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Blade Nzimande, said on Saturday.

CapeBio, a local biotechnology company, has started making the PCR test kits with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, he said. This would make it easier for the country and Africa as a whole to speedily access test kits.

"This latest development is part of a concerted effort by the department and its partners to build local capabilities to respond to viruses like COVID-19," Nzimande said.

Daniel Ndima, chief executive of CapeBio, said: "This is a massive achievement in the national response to the pandemic and a significant milestone for our country. We will be able to assist the nation and Africa by alleviating our reliance on imports."

Industrial-scale manufacturing of the test kits has begun, he said, and the first batches will be available for the local market before the end of this month.

Xinhua - Agencies