Duale admits shortage of polio and TB vaccines for children

Vaccines to protect children against tuberculosis and polio are among those currently unavailable.
Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has admitted that there has been a shortage of vaccines in some parts of the country for the past fortnight, but has assured Kenyans that the drugs will be available again next month.
Vaccines to protect children against tuberculosis and polio are among those currently unavailable.
Mr Duale said that the delay in procuring vaccines was due to a failure to disburse Kenya’s share to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in good time.
“We have a system for procuring vaccines in Kenya – the traditional method where we pay for some of the vaccines using our own resources, and a co-financing method where we share with Gavi,” he explained.
“We had a small problem with Gavi because of the exchequer but the Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury has committed to pay the Sh930 million as part of the co-financing.”
He mentioned that the BCG vaccine, which protects children against getting a Tuberculosis infection, and the polio vaccine have been the most affected.
“Unicef confirmed to me in writing yesterday that the first batch will arrive between June 10, and 15 next month. It is because of our own late exchequer release,” he said.
Ms Duale spoke before the National Assembly Health Committee where the ministry was discussing the Health budgetary allocations.
A Nation analysis shows that the stock-outs could have been around for more than two weeks. We visited Turkana County in mid-April.
There, distances are not just measured in kilometres—they're sometimes felt in hours of travel, bumpy rides through heat and dust, and in the weight of a cooler box carrying hope.
From Lodwar town, the county’s epicentre of health services, vaccines are distributed to reach children in some of the most remote areas of the region. Kibish sub-county, for instance, is located more than 400 kilometres away with Kapedo and Lokichogio sub-counties being situated more than 200 kilometres away.
Dr Daniel Erus, the focal person for the Expanded Programme on Immunisation in Turkana County, opened up to the Nation regarding the vaccine needs for the entire county. He said that because of the long distance between Turkana and the regional depot in Eldoret, the vaccines are collected at once every quarter, then distributed to the 11 sub-counties.
“We use cold boxes fitted with ice packs made at the level that will be between the temperatures of plus two to plus eight,” he explained.
“Some of them take up to six hours, so we use fridge tags that also monitor the temperatures so they keep it in their freezers once they get to the sub-counties' cold rooms.”
However, with at least 50 babies brought in daily for their jabs, Lodwar County Referral Hospital was running on backup stock meant for the first quarter of the year, which was barely enough to last them beyond one week. That was on April 14.
Now, with support from key partners like USAID fading, even the simplest steps in this chain—like picking up vaccines from Lodwar—have become harder.
“We are running low on BCG, oral polio vaccine (OPV), and yellow fever vaccine. At this referral hospital, we have enough to last us until the end of this week. This is due to the high volume of patients we see. Therefore, I typically reserve any remaining buffer for this referral hospital. That's why we can provide these vaccines up to today. However, other facilities outside of Lodwar are currently experiencing shortages of these antigens,” he told Nation.
He said that the USAID Imarisha Jamii programme was helping these sub-counties to pick the vaccines from the depot. They were also helping in outreaches, in making sure that they transport their staff and the vaccines to the last mile.
Dr Erus put 46,000 as the number of babies the county had projected to immunise just this year alone. If you divide that by 12 months, that is about 3,850 babies every month.
“Before the covid-19 pandemic, Turkana’s immunisation coverage was improving. We even received national recognition for our efforts. However, pandemic disruptions caused the numbers to dip drastically. By 2021 and 2022, immunisation coverage hovered between 60 and 69 per cent. For this quarter, we were expecting to be at least above 75 per cent, so that we can be closer to the 80 per cent national coverage. We are very far away from reaching that. That is even when the USAID support was there. But now that the support has been cut short, we will be directly affected again,” he said.
The scarcity is not just at the county level.
“Starting this year, we have not been getting these vaccines in the required quantities. Because sometimes you get a few doses, which are not enough for the three months. So, we got some in February. We are expecting to get our fourth quarter from this month, but up to now, we have not been able to get notification that they are available in the Eldoret depot. Normally, when they receive it from the central vaccine store, they notify us. We have direct communication with them and we have a page where, when the vaccines are about to be issued to the regional stores, we are notified to place an order,” he explained.
Last year, Kenya faced widespread vaccine shortages, including key childhood immunisations such as BCG, polio, rotavirus, and tetanus. Just like this year, the crisis was largely linked to delays by the Kenyan government in releasing co-financing funds amounting to about Sh1.2 billion to Gavi, the vaccine alliance—its main partner in vaccine procurement.
This delay disrupted the timely supply of vaccines across the country, leaving many health facilities without essential stocks. In a letter, Gavi had earlier reminded the government that the full contribution for the 2024-2025 period needed to be paid by June 2025 to avoid jeopardising ongoing and future support.
“I am worried,” said Elizabeth Mwangi, a nurse in charge of the Maternal and Child Health clinics at the referral hospital. “Today we’ve seen about 70 children. On some days, it can go up to 100. Each one of these children needs at least one vaccine,” she told Nation.