A total of 196,800 doses of Johnson and Johnson vaccine procured with funding from Government of Uganda has arrived into the country. The consignment was officially received by the Health Ministry Permanent Secretary, Dr. Diana Atwine.
This is the first batch of the nine million doses of the single-shot vaccine procured by the government.
The vaccines were delivered at Entebbe International Airport on Thursday night. Dr Atwine said that another batch of 1.2 million doses on the same vaccine will arrive in the country by the end of next month.
Since March, Uganda has received 5,690,363 doses of various vaccines including AstraZeneca, Moderna, Sinovac, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson. Of these doses, 2.2 million have been administered, whereby 1.7 million people have got their first jab while nearly 600,000 have gotten two doses.
Atwine assured Ugandans that Johnson and Johnson vaccine is safe and effective. “It is very effective, and it has gone through the entire process of verification and registration, and therefore, it is very safe,” she said.
“I want to call upon the public to be vigilant to go and get vaccinated, because now we have adequate vaccines, and we expect more vaccines in the country. Therefore, there is no reason to worry that people will be turned down.”
“This war not end until we are vaccinated. The economies will not open fully until we are vaccinated. The children will not go to school freely until we are vaccinated. Life will not be normal until we are vaccinated. Therefore, the main message today is that we have enough vaccines, and many more are coming, and therefore, we call upon you to rally people to go the vaccination centres to get vaccinated,” Dr Atwine urged the public.
