The government is set to roll out its program of distributing Pfizer vaccines nationwide starting next week as the vaccination program intensifies.

The chairman of the national vaccine task force Dr Willis Akhwale says the government had not started vaccinating people using the doses due to lack of specialized equipment.

"The Pfizer doses require specialized needles and syringes, and the supplies will be delivered next week from the US so that we can start deploying it nationwide," said Akhwale.

Dr Akhwale also confirmed that the country is facing adequate storage facilities for the vaccine and that health workers had been trained in administering the doses as it has been the case with other types of vaccine available in the country.

Dr Akhwale confirmed that the government can store 3 million doses.

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"We already have deep freezers which have been distributed to all our regional centres; we also have 15 portable devices that will be used to distribute them nationwide," he confirmed.

Aside from Pfizer, Kenya has also acquired four different vaccines, namely AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna and Sinopharm.

Sinopharm vaccine arrived last week from China, in a batch comprising 200,000 doses with more expected to be acquired through the COVAX facility.

The government aims to vaccinate at least 10 million adults by December 2021.