Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday received the COVID-19 vaccine injection alongside First Lady Margaret Kenyatta in Nairobi, Xinhua news agency reported.
The first family and senior government officials including Cabinet secretaries received vaccination shortly after Kenyatta addressed the nation and introduced a new raft of measures to contain the spread of the deadly virus.
Kenyatta who received the jab in public reiterated that it is one of the ways to safeguard oneself against the virus.
The president had earlier directed all cabinet secretaries and those working in the executive office to be vaccinated and, "lead by example" as the government scales up the roll-out exercise of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Kenyatta who had earlier introduced a raft of new measures to contain the spread of the virus including a revision of the daily curfew and cessation of movement in key towns said that Kenyans have a critical role to play in order to avert further deaths.
"In less than 12 days, our admission in hospitals has increased by 52 percent. The positivity rate is the highest since the pandemic began and the stress on our health care is unparalleled," Kenyatta said.
The east African nation on March 2 received 1.02 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The first phase of the vaccination campaign will run until the end of June and benefit 1.2 million Kenyans. Kenya on Thursday revised its priority list of those to be vaccinated to include people aged 58 years and above.
"At the end of January 2021, our COVID-19 positivity rate stood at 2.6 percent. By March 22, the positivity rate had jumped to 19 percent and indications by our experts are that the positivity rate is now settling at 22 percent," Kenyatta said.
Kenya has so far confirmed 126,170 COVID-19 cases, 2,092 deaths and 91,268 recoveries as of Thursday.
