Uhuru: Vaccine nationalism is the clearest demonstration of world’s inequity

President Uhuru Kenyatta now claims that vaccine nationalism is the clearest demonstration of the world’s inequity.

In an interview with Sky News, the Head of State stated that most African countries, including Kenya, collaborated with international governments during research and trials only to be forgotten once the vaccines were manufactured.

“One of the things that has shown how unequal the world is, is vaccine nationalism,” President Kenyatta told the media outlet on Friday “We worked together during the clinical trials and then all of a sudden we find ourselves unable to access the same vaccines”

President Kenyatta believes that vaccine disparities must be addressed since the globe will remain unsafe if the African majority continues unvaccinated.

“The fact of the matter is that nobody, not here in the UK or the United States, or Germany nobody is gonna be safe until everybody is safe,” President Kenyatta added.

President Kenyatta stated that vaccine equity must be reconsidered in order to ensure equal distribution to developing countries.

He also saw a dark side to vaccine scarcity, saying that for instance, countries like Kenya had run into hurdles while trying to purchase vaccines.

“….We wanna buy, but then you say, it s not available, on the other hand, you say we cannot give you the Intellectual Property Rights to protect your own people, You know, it got to be one way or the other,” President Kenyatta added.

At the same time, Kenya’s President stated that if IP rights were granted, Kenya would manufacture vaccines in the shortest period possible.

“If we were given the IP, we would manufacture the vaccine at KEMRI in the shortest time possible,”

Kenya has an ambitious plan to vaccinate 10 million people by December 2021 and 26 million by the end of 202, considering that so far, less than 3 percent have been vaccinated.