The Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng has said that the story of vaccine scarcity is now becoming an issue of the past.
“There are more than five million doses of vaccines in the country with a consignment of Johnson & Johnson vaccines that we bought. This will work towards increasing vaccination across the country,” Aceng said.
Aceng, who is also the Woman MP for Lira City made the remarks at Lira Regional Referral Hospital on Thursday while receiving 40 oxygen cylinders donated to the hospital by Absa Bank Uganda.
The Absa Bank Uganda Managing Director, Kalifungwa Mumba emphasized the role played by private companies to augment government efforts to deal with health issues including the pandemic.
“Following the onset of the pandemic, a lot of people have placed a great value on life. And it was in response to that realisation that in our way, we decided that it is necessary to be key players in the health sector,” Mumba said.
He added that human health, economic wellbeing and the natural environment are interconnected and that by creating shared value within the communities in which they operate, the private sector can become an enabler of post-pandemic economic recovery.
The first batch of 196,800 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine bought by the Ugandan government arrived in the country on Thursday night.
The country has so far received 5,690,363 doses of Covid-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca, Sinovac, Moderna, Pfizer, and, most recently, Johnson & Johnson.
A total of 2,282,414 doses have been administered, with a further 2,080,594 are being distributed across the country.
