KENYA – The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has partnered with the Mastercard Foundation to launch the In-Country Implementation of the Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative in Kenya in continental efforts to improve vaccine uptake and vaccine coverage.

The Government of Kenya, through the Ministry of Health, and the Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative are targeting more than 8,000 outreaches while strengthening 672 COVID-19 vaccination centres along with vaccinating more than 1 million within 12 months in selected counties.

According to Africa CDC, the implementation campaign will focus on Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE), vaccine capacity, logistics, and vaccine surveillance to enable Kenya to reach its COVID-19 vaccination target.

Previously, the Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative under the Urgent Support program for Kenya and the pooled fund provided a total of $1.4m to administer 286,822 COVID-19 vaccines and trained 5,544 vaccinators, 2,638 data and records personnel as well as 2,850 community health volunteers

The Africa CDC and Mastercard, through the Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative, have provided funding valued at US$3M to kickstart the In-Country Implementation in Kenya with a goal to accelerate the country’s COVID-19 vaccination.

In June 2021, Mastercard Foundation announced that it will deploy US$1.5 billion over the next three years in partnership with the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention to save the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in Africa and hasten the economic recovery of the continent.

The partnership focused on four key objectives namely to purchase COVID-19 vaccines for at least 65 million people, advance the delivery and administration of vaccines, lay the groundwork for vaccine manufacturing by focusing on human capital development and strengthen the capacity of Africa CDC.

The Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative is currently focused on turning vaccine delivery into vaccinations by working with governments to help set up vaccination centres, train and support health care workers along with community engagements on why vaccines are safe and important.

COVID-19 vaccines from the Mastercard Foundation and Africa CDC’s Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative land in Kenya at a time when the country is experiencing a sixth wave of Covid-19 infections with only 32% of the adult population fully vaccinated.

“We are very much honored to launch the country implementation of Saving Lives and Livelihoods in Kenya by Africa CDC in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation,” said Dr Achamyelesh Debela, the Coordinator of the Africa CDC Eastern Africa Regional Coordinating Centre during the launch of the mass vaccine campaign.

The Saving Lives and Livelihoods initiative further builds on an earlier collaboration between Mastercard and Africa CDC to expand access to testing kits and enhance surveillance capacity in Africa to achieve a 70 percent inoculation target against COVID-19 by 2022.

Moreover, the largest public health partnership between a global philanthropic organization and an African institution has paved way for the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust to negotiate and secure 510 million doses for Africa from vaccine manufacturers.

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