A total of 175,200 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine donated by the French government through the COVAX facility have arrived in Uganda. The vaccines arrived at Entebbe International Airport on Wednesday night aboard KLM airlines.
The batch was received by officials from the Ministry of Health and National Medical Stores-NMS. Sheila Nduhukire, the NMS Spokesperson said the vaccines were picked by their trucks from the airport for safe storage.
"The vaccines are now in the safe hands of NMS and security. Doses will be stored for onward distribution across the country,” she said.
Today, the ministry of health is expected to communicate how the doses will be distributed and the targeted recipients.
Currently, Uganda is facing a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases, with a daily average of 1,000 cases and over 65 deaths recorded in the last two weeks.
With the new batch it brings to 1, 139,200, the number of COVID-19 doses received in the country.
The first two batches, totaling 964,000 doses arrived in the country in March and are expected to expire by July 10th, 2021.
