Kenya: 279 people affected by AstraZeneca vaccine

By Andrew Wasike

NAIROBI, Kenya (AA) - Kenya’s Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) announced on Wednesday that 279 people reported suffering adverse effects after taking the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine.

“All reported serious AEFI [Adverse event following immunization] are under investigations and none of them has resulted into fatal outcomes,” the PPB said in a statement. "Out of the 279 reported cases, 272 were mild and resolved within a short period."

Deputy Director of the PPB Peter Mbwiiri Ikamati, who spoke at a news conference earlier in the day said one person died from an adverse event following immunization.

But the PPB later recanted and said that “there was a misreporting of an adverse event following immunization (AEFI) as fatal.”

The Ministry of Health on Wednesday reported 1,523 people have tested positive for the virus from a sample size of 7,423.

Total positive cases are now 141,365 and cumulative tests conducted are 1,530,736 in the East African nation that has 52.5 million people.

A total of 616 patients have recovered from the disease bringing the number of recoveries to 97,194. Eighteen deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours, all are late death reports from facility record audits. Cumulative fatalities stand at 2,276.

The Ministry of Health announced that 339,893 people in Kenya have been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine as of Tuesday -- 99,084 are health workers, 27, 945 security officers, 45,877 teachers and 166,987 are other members of the public, including residents who are 58 years and older.