UNICEF has included East African carrier, Kenya Airways among 15 airlines contracted to handle the COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
According to africa.cgtn.com, communication between UNICEF and the government indicates the change in tune followed high level of lobbying by the government, to have the carrier get a chunk of the vaccine cargo business amid slump in passenger travel.
The Ministry of Transport had questioned why the airline missed out on the deal.
“KQ is now among the carriers in UNICEF humanitarian airfreight initiative and as such would be eligible to carry COVAX vaccines and other essential supplies to different countries and we have already signed the MoU,” reads the communication.
KQ, recently converted its Boeing 787 passenger planes into freighters. The airline last year launched a modern pharma cargo facility at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA).
The inclusion of the national carrier in the UNICEF list brings the number of African airlines participating in the program to three.
Other airlines taking part in this initiative include AirBridgeCargo, Air France/KLM, Emirates SkyCargo, Brussels Airlines, Cargolux, Cathay Pacific, Etihad Airways, IAG Cargo, Korean Air, Lufthansa Cargo, Qatar Airways, Saudia, Singapore Airlines and United Airlines.
The selected carriers are expected to transport 600 million doses of the vaccine between March and December. These are the free vaccines that the World Health Organization (WHO) is supplying to Africa to cover about 20 percent of the population in the continent.
UNICEF and Gavii are paying for the vaccines for Africa with the former also overseeing procurement and logistics.