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Districts start receiving Covid-19 vaccines
A health worker administers a Covid jab at Kololo Independence Grounds in May 2021. PHOTO/ FILE
What you need to know:
- Kole District, which is also found in northern Uganda, said they received a few doses of vaccines but the priority will be given to frontline workers who did not get the second jab
Some districts in the country on Tuesday said they started receiving Covid-19 vaccines, a day after the National Medical Stores (NMS) dispatched the jabs.
Mr Edmond Aceka the acting Lira District health officer (DHO), told Daily Monitor that they received 3,000 doses of vaccines and that the exercise will likely resume next Monday.
“I am in a taskforce meeting to determine when to start the vaccination exercise,” Mr Aceka said, adding that the doses were for the district and Lira City.
Kole District, which is also found in northern Uganda, said they received a few doses of vaccines but the priority will be given to frontline workers who did not get the second jab.
The DHO, Dr James Kirya, said the vaccines had just arrived.
“The consignment has just arrived, so we are not sure about the number of doses that have been allocated to us,” Dr Kirya said.
Dr Henry Mwebesa, the director general of Health Services, said they have asked districts to start vaccination as soon as they receive the jabs.
The Ministry of Health received additional donations of 586,080 doses of Covid-19 vaccines last month. The jabs comprised 300,000 doses of Sinovac from the Chinese government and 286,080 doses of AstraZeneca from global sharing initiative Covax.
But the ministry said it would start by delivering the AstraZeneca vaccines.
However, according to our mini-survey, many districts had not yet received the vaccines.
In Tororo, the chief administrative officer (CAO), Mr Dunstan Balaba, said they have not yet received Covid-19 additional vaccines.
He said the district hospital and health centres are overwhelmed by people who are waiting to be vaccinated.
“We have only received confirmation that the ministry is committed to delivering the vaccine to the district, any time soon,” he said.
The experience in Tororo is the same in Mbale, Kabarole, Apac, Arua and Moyo districts.
However, the acting district health officer for Arua, Mr Paul Drileba, said: “We received 11, 820 doses in the first phase and 2,730 in the second dispatch.”
The Moyo District Health Officer, Dr Franklin Idi, told Daily Monitor on Tuesday: “We are most likely to get it this week. Even this morning (Tuesday), I received phone calls from the ministry about the delay. We are waiting for the vaccines to arrive and distribute them to the designated health centres.” Asked about how much they expect to receive, Dr Idi said: “We cannot determine how many dozes but it will be more than what we received in the first and second phase.”
“Earlier we received 2,030 and 490 dozes but we expect more this time because it was not enough,” he added.
The majority of people who are so far vaccinated in the country are due for the second dose.
Compiled by Tonny Abet, Scovia Atuhaire, Fred Wambede, Patrick Ebong, Bill Oketch, Santo Ojok, Felix Warom Okello & Scovin Iceta
