More than 400,000 health workers and others in Kenya offering essential services are expected to be inoculated starting Friday.

This was revealed on Wednesday by Health CS Mutahi Kagwe, who said that was the total number of persons being targeted in Phase 1 of the Coronavirus vaccination programme. 

In a statement, Kagwe said the Covid-19 vaccines that landed in Kenya on Tuesday night will be rolled out in three phases on a priority basis.

“The targeted population to be covered in this first phase remains 1.25miIlion and does not include politicians as was erroneously reported in a section of the media today,” Kagwe said.

The jab, he said, will be distributed to referral hospitals across the country, including level 4 and 3 in a collaboration between the national and county governments.

This comes as 331 more people tested positive for Coronavirus in the last 24 hours out of 4,725 samples tested.

The Wednesday cases bring Kenya’s Covid-19 caseload to 106,801 with cumulative tests done so far standing at 1,311,326.

During the last 24 hours, 54 patients recovered from the virus raising total  recoveries in Kenya to 86,914.

Unfortunately, three patients died from the virus pushing cumulative fatalities to 1,866.