A cocktail of vaccines way better than none

A Nurse vaccinates a person with Astra-Zeneca vaccine. [PHOTO: Wilberforce Okwiri, Standard]

There were fears that the so-called “vaccine nationalism” would lead to some segments of the world cleared of Covid-19 while the rest grappled with the pandemic for years to come.

There are projections that it will take at least two years for everyone to be vaccinated against the scourge.

But that’s not my problem; we have a unique problem in Kenya. About half a million people received the first dose of their AstraZeneca a month ago. Now the vaccine is in short supply and Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe, ever the pragmatist, is treating this shortage as a “normal” occurrence and importing what’s available on the market.

Soon, it was reported, we’ll have vaccines from Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson in circulation. It might seem a little far-fetched, but who knows, without adequate doses of AstraZeneca in the country, perhaps those in the queue for the second jab of AstraZeneca might to be told to pick their choice and get a shot of Pfizer or Johnson and Johnson.

That way we’d end up as guinea pigs, just as those powers-that-be have always wanted. As they say in their language, there are many ways of skinning a cat. A cocktail of vaccines, after all, is better than none at all.