As the number of COVID-19 infections globally, a team of medics, scientists and researchers at Oxford University have been working around the clock to invent a vaccine that will help prevent the spread of the infection. In less than three months they have invented a vaccine that can cure the disease and it is still currently undergoing human trial.
One BBC journalist recently suggested that scientists could start their trials in Kenya if tests in the UK don’t get the expected results while speaking on the World Service about his assessment on how successful trial in the UK could be.
“We could be careful not to over-promise because we are desperate for this vaccine to work but the team in Oxford have a really strong record going back 30 years. They have developed successful prototype vaccines against another type of coronavirus, MERS…. which has done well in clinical trials, they’ve also developed vaccines against plague, malaria (now) if they don’t get early quick results from the UK they are considering a trial in Kenya where the epidemic of the coronavirus will be on the rise,” he said.
His sentiments did not augur well with Kenyans who took to social media to rant about such an outrageous proposition with the likes of Senator Ledama and Blogger Alai leading the bandwagon. This comes days after French doctor suggested Africa as the ground for coronavirus vaccine trials.
However, in today’s COVID-19 presser, a journalist from Citizen TV asked CAS Health Rashid Aman if he government was aware that Kenya was being targeted with the trial vaccine and what the government is planning to do about it. To the surprise of many, the CAS blatantly admitted that the government was not aware of such arrangements as such decisions are not taken lightly because that have to go through the proper chain of command.
