Kenyan COVID-19 vaccine offer to diplomats draws local doctors' ire

Kenya has offered free COVID-19 vaccines to all diplomats based there, including thousands of United Nations staff, even though it has not completed inoculating its own health workers, other frontline staff or elderly, drawing criticism from local medics.

A woman reacts as she receives the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine under the COVAX scheme against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya March 5, 2021. [Reuters: Monicah Mwangi]

The offer was made in a March 18 letter sent by the Ministry of Foreign affairs to diplomatic missions and seen by Reuters. Macharia Kamau, the foreign ministry’s principal secretary, said the shots being offered had been supplied via the World Health Organization (WHO) co-led COVAX vaccine access scheme.