Kenya aims to vaccinate its entire adult population by December 2022

A resident receives a dose of the AstraZeneca Plc Covid-19 vaccine at Mbagathi Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, on Tuesday, July 6, 2021. (Patrick Meinhardt / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Kenya is targeting to vaccinate its entire adult population against COVID-19 by December 2022, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

The country has been undertaking a nationwide vaccination campaign since March 2020 in efforts to contain further spread of the virus.

So far, 1,881,988 vaccines have been administered across the country. Of these, total first doses are 1,160,809 while second doses are 721,179.

Despite the vaccinations, Kenya continues to see a steady upsurge in its COVID-19 caseload as a third wave of the pandemic hits the East African country.

On Wednesday, the country's health ministry reported 1,974 infections from a sample size of 13,407 tests conducted in the last 24 hours. This pushed its total number of cases to 215,730.

30 new virus-related deaths were also reported, raising the total number of COVID-19 fatalities to 4,241.

Other than the vaccination campaign, the government has also imposed various containment measures, including a ban on public gatherings, a nationwide nighttime curfew and the mandatory wearing of face coverings.