The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, has commenced the Country implementation of the Saving Lives and Livelihoods (SLL) initiative in Kenya to accelerate the COVID-19 vaccination. The vaccination drive is coming when the country is experiencing the 6th wave of COVID-19 infection, with only 32 per cent of the adult population fully vaccinated.
The Africa CDC Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative is a $1.5bn partnership with the Mastercard Foundation and launched in June 2021 to purchase COVID-19 vaccines for at least 65 million people and support the delivery to millions across the continent.
A total of $ 3 million of the fund has been provided to kickstart the implementation in Kenya.
The initiative will synergize the efforts of the Government, Africa CDC, and other partners in increasing COVID-19 vaccine uptake. The implementation campaign will focus on Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE), vaccine capacity, logistics, and vaccine surveillance to enable Kenya to reach its COVID-19 vaccination target.
“Today, as we launch the mass vaccine campaign by the Government of Kenya, we are very much honoured to launch the country implementation of Saving Lives and Livelihoods in Kenya by Africa CDC in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation,” said Dr Achamyelesh Debela, the Coordinator of the Africa CDC Eastern Africa Regional Coordinating Centre.
In this support, the Saving lives and Livelihoods initiative and the Ministry of Health have planned a target of more than 8,000 outreaches while strengthening 672 COVID-19 vaccination centres and vaccinating more than 1m within 12 months in selected counties.
Previously, the Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative under the Urgent Support program for Kenya and the pooled fund provided a total of $1.4m to administer 286,822 COVID-19 vaccines and trained 5,544 vaccinators, 2,638 data, and records personnel as well as 2,850 community health volunteers; and further deployed mobile vaccination teams in five counties.
The ultimate goal of the Africa CDC through the Saving lives and Livelihoods program in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation is to accelerate the 70% vaccine coverage of the African population by the end of 2022.
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