Uganda President Yoweri Museveni said the country will import five million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines next month after the discovery of new COVID-19 variants.
Museveni said the vaccines will be used to vaccinate at least 80 per cent of the 5.5 million elderly.
People below 50 years, with underlying medical conditions that are at high risk of contracting the novel coronavirus, will also be vaccinated.
Uganda targets to vaccinate more than 21.9 million individuals, including health professionals, students, aid workers, and military forces, as well as the elderly and others with chronic medical conditions.
“The government is working hard to ensure that we carry another five million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine before the end of May to complete the threshold vaccination and ensure that those vaccinated get the second booster dose,” Museveni stated.
“Vaccines are the most powerful COVID-19 intervention we have.
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“The government and its allies are working tirelessly to get vaccinations to the majority of adult Ugandans in order to protect them and to help us reopen the economy and return all of our children to school.”
The Director-General of Health Services, Henry Mwebesa, announced last week that Uganda would receive two million more doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines via the COVAX facility in May.
Uganda has obtained 964,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines so far from the COVAX vaccine exchange scheme and the Indian government.
According to Uganda Ministry of Health data released on April 16, a total of 220,893 people had received the first dose of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine with 41,340 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 40,898 recoveries and 338 deaths.
Recall that the emergence of highly transmissible COVID-19 variants was first identified in the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Nigeria.
