By Leilah Bbaale
Uganda has received 196,800 doses of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. This is the first batch of the nine million doses of the single-shot vaccine procured by the government.
The vaccines were delivered aboard Brussels Airlines, which torched down at Entebbe International Airport on Thursday night.
The Health Ministry Permanent Secretary, Dr. Diana Atwine, says that another batch of 1.2 million doses on the same vaccine will arrive in the country by the end of next month. She says that more people will now have access to COVID-19 vaccination because of the delivery of the additional vaccines.
Atwine explains that since March, Uganda has received 5,690,363 doses of various vaccines including AstraZeneca, Moderna, Sinovac, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson.
Of these doses, 2.2 million have been administered, whereby 1,7 million people have got their first jab while nearly 600,000 have gotten two doses. Since people get only one shot for Johnson and Johnson vaccine, Atwine is optimistic that it will attract a high turnup across the country.
Atwine says the government released Shillings 120 billion to buy vaccines. Shillings 55.8billion was released to buy 9 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine. The doses are being procured through the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust-AVAT. AVAT was launched last November by the African Union with support from Africa CDC and Afriexim Bank among others to ensure widespread access to COVID-19 vaccines across the continent.
