The Ministry of Health has confirmed that Uganda is yet to receive 3.5 million doses of vaccines by the end of 2021.
According to Health Minister Jane Ruth Acheng, the doses are mostly donations from China, Belgium, France, European Union, and the US.
This is in addition to government procured vaccines like 1.2 million of the single-dose vaccine Johnson and Johnson from the US and Sinovac
Aceng says they plan to have fully vaccinated up to 4.8 million people by end of the year and that between now and December, they expect a major increase in stock adding to the already received 5.6 million doses of different vaccines.
So far only 2.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered with the majority of the people getting only one of the two jabs. Less than 600,000 have been fully vaccinated with two jabs, far below the target of vaccinating 10 per cent of the target population by end of September, which was set by the World Health Organization.
Uganda had targeted to vaccinate 22 million Ugandans.
Disregarding concerns of vaccine hesitancy, Health Minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng told journalists on Wednesday that they haven’t reached as many elderly people and teachers as they ought to have. She blames this on the existence of a few vaccination sites in, especially upcountry districts.
Aceng said they are now seeing more women and children getting newly infected especially in areas of Teso and added that they have received feedback from the elderly complaining of long distances to vaccination sites.
