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Kenyan officials have until the end of August to be vaccinated against Covid-19 or face disciplinary action, according to a government document released this week.
The ordinance comes as Parliament is due to consider a motion to ban people who are unvaccinated or without a negative Covid certificate from certain public and private spaces.
Kenya is seeing an increase in coronavirus cases, but vaccine deployment remains slow, with less than 3% of the 47 million people having been vaccinated.
“Some officials have deliberately avoided getting vaccinated so they can take time off work under the pretext of working from home,” Civil Service Chief Joseph Kinyua said in a note to ministries.
“It is in a context of access to vaccines which has greatly improved.”
He said there had been low vaccine uptake among government officials, especially in the security sector, teachers and basic civil service workers – designated as essential workers by the government.
Those who did not get a first shot by August 23 will be “treated as cases of discipline and appropriate action will be taken against them,” Kinyua said, without specifying what the penalties might be.
The country aims to vaccinate at least 26 million people by the end of next year.
MPs are also due to debate a motion on Thursday to deny people access to private and public spaces if they are not fully vaccinated or do not have a negative Covid-19 certificate.
It was not immediately clear where the proposed restrictions would apply.
At the end of last month, the government extended a nationwide nighttime curfew until further notice and banned public gatherings, warning that hospitals were becoming overwhelmed.
In total, the East African country has recorded more than 213,000 coronavirus infections of which 4,211 have been fatal, and recently the number of daily cases has often exceeded 1,000.
Weekly positivity rates have gone from an average of seven percent in early June to nearly 15 percent now.
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