Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to (a) help increase the manufacturing of covid-19 vaccines and (b) support the rollout of covid-19 vaccination programmes in Kenya.

The UK is actively supporting the scaling up of vaccine manufacturing in Africa. Successful vaccine manufacturing needs commercially viable businesses operating within a well-developed ecosystem of skilled workers, innovative technology, and effective regulation. To help deliver this ecosystem, the UK is supporting the new "Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing" initiative to implement a roadmap for African vaccine manufacturing.

The UK is also supporting COVID-19 vaccine roll-out in Kenya. COVAX, to which we are one of the largest donors, has delivered 15.8 million doses of vaccines to Kenya. In addition to our financial support to COVAX, we have shared more than 817,000 COVID-19 vaccines with Kenya both through COVAX and bilaterally. During my visit to a vaccination centre in Nairobi in January, I witnessed the strength of the UK-Kenya health partnership and I have discussed vaccine manufacturing with Government of Kenya officials.