Ugandans urged to get Covid-19 jab as exercise resumes today
Mass vaccination against Covid-19 pandemic resumes today as the country continues to battle with the second wave of Covid-19 with a daily average of 1,000 cases and over 65 deaths recorded in the past weeks.
Recently, the government had halted the exercise after the 964,000 doses of the vaccine, which were received through a global sharing initiative–Covax and the Indian government, got finished.
"Covid-19 vaccination exercise resumes today Monday 28 June until Friday 2 July 2021.Groups that will be immunised are: All those who have reached 12 weeks since receiving their 1st dose of the vaccine, health workers," he statement from the Ministry of Health reads.
Dr Alfred Driwale, the head of vaccination programme in the Ministry of Health said that 8 vaccination points have been put in each of the divisions of Kampala to avoid overcrowding asking the population to go for vaccination.
"If we don’t manage ourselves very well during the immunization period, we could create super spreader events at those vaccination sites so for that reason we are have agreed that districts have an internal mechanism to have a number of vaccination points to ensure that they are close to people," said Driwale.
Recently Uganda received an additional 175,200 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine donated by the French government through the COVAX facility.
The first two batches, totalling 964,000 doses arrived in the country in March and are expected to expire by July 10th, 2021.
By June 25, 843,039 people including health workers, teachers, security personnel, airport staff, the elderly and people with diabetes, hypertension and other underlying conditions had been vaccinated.
More than 322,000 people are due for the second round, according to the head of the immunisation programme.
The second round increases protection for recipients from severe illness and deaths by another 30% (from 62-92 per cent), according to information from government scientists.
