Ministry of health has distributed a total of 663,520 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to all districts across the country.
Launched on 10th March 2020 at Mulago National Referral Hospital, Vaccination against COVID-19 commenced with healthcare workers throughout the country and currently, 7,920, have received their 1st dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Uganda is administering the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 Vaccine and the health minister Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng says they are aware that the vaccination exercise started on a slow pace, due to logistical and technological challenges in some districts that are continuously being addressed. Presently, vaccination of health workers in all districts is progressing smoothly.
She noted that vaccination of both health workers and teachers/lecturers will now take place concurrently. The purpose is to serve these two priority categories as planned and also catch up on lost time, while persons of 70 years and above have also been encouraged to join the exercise immediately.
“People aged 50 years and above remain a priority for COVID-19 Vaccination. However, their estimated number is 3,348,500. Currently, Uganda has only 964,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which is inadequate to cover this population subgroup. In addition, of the available doses, 700,000 doses are for the health workers and teachers.
The Ministry of Health has therefore decided to begin vaccinating people 70 years and above against COVID-19. As more doses of the vaccine arrive in the country, all those who are aged 50 years and above will be scheduled for vaccination. The schedules for other priority groups will be communicated by the Ministry of Health and the District Health Offices from time to time.
This is therefore to call upon all those 70 years and above to report to the health facilities and get their COVID-19 vaccine” Dr. Aceng said.
