The initial doses of Covid-19 vaccines are set to land in Kenya at the end of February, according to the Ministry of Health ahead of a countrywide rollout of vaccination.

Health acting Director General Dr Patrick Amoth says Kenya expects 4,176,000 doses of vaccine from Oxford-Astrazeneca.

This comes days after South Africa suspended use of Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine after a clinical trial on 2,000 people revealed it was not effective in tackling Covid-19 variant dominant there.

This also comes weeks after Kenya recorded three cases of the South African variant of the virus, including two asymptomatic persons, who returned to South Africa, and a truck driver.

Kenyan plans to import more than 24 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

However, World Health Organisation (WHO) says benefits of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca- Oxford University outweigh any risks and recommended continued use.

This comes as Kenya recorded 173 more positive cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours out of 3,784 samples tested, raising the cumulative cases in the country to 102,221.

However, two more people died from the virus bringing the national fatalities to 1,791, as the

Ministry of Health ruled out relaxing the national containment measures just yet.