American philanthropist and wife of Billionaire, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates on Thursday, July 23, made a promise to President Uhuru Kenyatta in regard to the development of the Covid-19 vaccine.
During a virtual meeting with the president, the co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation assured that her organisation would ensure frontline health workers all over the world including Kenya would be among the first to receive the Covid-19 vaccine as soon as it becomes available.
Melinda further commended Kenya's Covid-19 response strategy noting that it was geared to helping women and girls cope with the social and economic challenges posed by the pandemic.
The philantrhopist added that her foundation supported measures being taken by Kenya to tame the rising cases of violence against women and teenage pregnancies during the current health crisis.
The foundation is one of Kenya's largest development partners in the health sector, injecting over Ksh9 billion annually into the country's primary healthcare covering sectors such as family planning, HIV/AIDS research, maternal and child health, and nutrition.
In June 2020, The organisation committed Ksh10 billion to Gavi, the global Vaccine Alliance in supporting the purchase of Covid-19 vaccines for lower-income countries through a new Covid-19 Vaccine Advance Market Commitment.
Speaking on the availability of the vaccine on the foundation's website, Bill Gates noted that a global agreement would be ideal on who should get the vaccine first.
"Given how many competing interests there are, this is unlikely to happen. The governments that provide the funding, the countries where the trials are run, and the places where the pandemic is the worst will all make a case that they should get priority," Gates observed.
He however explained that he invested in the medical industry as millions of children were dying of preventable diseases every year.
"This is a large part of the reason that Melinda and I got into philanthropy. One of our first big investments was to an organization called Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Since 2000, Gavi and partners have immunized more than 760 million children, saving over 13 million lives," he stated.
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On July 12, reports from Russian media indicated that scientists at Sechenov University clinical research center were currently past Phase-1 of human trials.
Reports regarding successful Covid-19 vaccine human trials in Russia on July 12, went viral, with Kenyans taking to social media to share their excitement and optimism over the latest news.
Russia's Gamalei National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology - responsible for developing and testing the vaccine, head Alexander Gintsburg told the state-run TASS news agency that they hoped the vaccine would “enter civil circulation” between August 12 and 14.
As of July 22, Kenya had recorded 15,601 Cases, 263 fatalities and 7,135 recoveries since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in the country.
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