300,000 Sinovac Vaccines
The Ministry of Health has halted the distribution of 300,000 donations of the Sinovac vaccine that was donated by China close to 2 weeks ago.
The Sinovac vaccine was approved by both the World Health Organisation -WHOand the National Drug Authority-NDA, but the government is yet to determine which category of persons should benefit from the vaccine doses.
Therefore, Sinovac vaccines remain in storage at the National Medical Stores until the government makes a decision.
Dr. Alfred Driwale, the program manager of the Uganda National Expanded Programme on Immunization attributes the delay in the distribution of the vaccines to the procedure.
He says “These vaccines are safe. They have been tried and tested. There’s nothing serious. We are just taking our time to decide where the vaccine would be of much use,.”
Dr. Driwale further explains that it is a technical decision that has to be approved first before the distribution commences.
300,000 Sinovac Vaccines
Driwale explains;” Decisions are not yet concluded, so that is why we are still waiting, once it is a technical decision, its a proposal, then it has to be approved, a decision has not been made on the distribution of Sinovac and it will be given in due course”.
Dr. Driwale says considering the global scarcity of vaccines and the fact that nations are hoarding vaccines,they cannot afford to offer the vaccines to persons getting second doses only because many people are yet to get even one jab.
To date, 1.1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been issued in the country using AstraZeneca.
Uganda resumes vaccination this week using 286,000 doses of AstraZeneca that were donated by Norway.
These donations will target only health workers and persons supposed to receive their second jabs within a period of 10 weeks.
