Kenya will receive funds directly from Gavi to purchase vaccines of its choice, ending a 25-year arrangement in which the global vaccine group disbursed money through multiple separate grants tied to individual vaccines.
Under the new model, each country will receive one consolidated budget for vaccine purchases.
The shift means that the Ministry of Health will have a bigger say on procurement decisions, not just last-mile distribution. This is a departure from the current arrangement in which the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) handled purchasing on behalf of Kenya.
Under the previous system, Gavi financed procurement through Unicef's supply division, which purchased vaccines on behalf of recipient countries and arranged their delivery.
Once vaccines arrived in the country for Kenya, the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority took responsibility for warehousing and distributing them to counties and health facilities.
Countries also applied separately for each vaccine they sought support for, with each application having its own timeline and administrative requirements.
Gavi Chief Executive Sania Nishtar said the new funding structure is designed to simplify access to funding while ensuring a fairer distribution of resources.
“The introduction of vaccine budgets and other elements of the Gavi Leap reform is the culmination of a 12-month process to completely redesign the way we disburse money to countries. Giving countries advance knowledge of the size of their vaccine budget for the next five years helps national governments plan strategically.
“It also helps ensure that all of Gavi’s available resources are distributed equitably and predictably based on need, rather than on a first-come, first-served basis,” said Ms Nishtar.
She said allocations would be calculated based on a measure of health need, such as how many children under five die each year, as well as the country’s income and ability to fund its own health system.
Limits will be placed on how much any single country can receive, to ensure poorer nations get a fair share.
Kenya has been a long-standing Gavi partner, receiving support for vaccines, including pneumococcal, rotavirus, and malaria. The country was among the first globally to roll out the malaria vaccine at scale and, in 2025, introduced the typhoid conjugate vaccine into its routine immunisation schedule.
Since 2001, Gavi has provided Kenya with vaccines and related supplies worth more than $940 million (Sh121.3 billion). Gavi helps the world's poorest and lower-income countries buy vaccines.
The procurement shift also comes as Kenya approaches the end of its partnership with Gavi. The country entered the accelerated phase of Gavi transition in 2022 after its gross national income per capita exceeded the alliance's eligibility threshold for three consecutive years, and it is expected to become fully self-financing by 2029 or 2030.
However, a 2024 study analysing Kenya’s readiness to transition from Gavi support found that both national and county governments are not fully prepared for the end of the programme.
Currently, Kenya has an unpaid bill of $12.4 million (Sh1.6 billion) for the 2024/2025 financial year in its co-financing obligations to Gavi, raising concerns about the country’s ability to sustain its immunisation programme without external support.
