The Minister of Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng has said that vaccine scarcity was becoming an issue of the past.
“There are more than 5 million doses of vaccines in the country, with a consignment of Johnson and Johnson arriving soon, which would work toward increasing vaccination across the country,” she added.
The first batch of 196,800 doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine arrived in Uganda on Thursday night. The country has thus far received 5,690,363 doses of Covid-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca, Sinovac, Moderna, Pfizer, and, most recently, J&J.
A total of 2,282,414 doses have been administered, with a further 2,080,594 are being distributed across the country.
Dr. Aceng, who is also the Woman Member of Parliament for Lira City, made the remarks at Lira Regional Referral Hospital yesterday while receiving 40 oxygen cylinders donated to the hospital by Absa Bank Uganda.
While emphasising the role that private companies play in collaborating with the government to alleviate community health issues, specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mumba Kalifungwa, Absa Bank Uganda’s Managing Director, said, “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.”
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.
