Uganda on Thursday received 299,520 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine donated by the UK through the COVAX facility as it steps up its efforts to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.
A statement by the Ministry of Health said the vaccines will be distributed by the National Medical Stores (NMS) to all health facilities to ensure the vaccination campaign is ongoing.
Just over a week ago, the Ugandan government announced that COVID-19 vaccination will resume after the exercise had been halted last month due to the depletion of available doses.
The resumption was enabled by the government receiving additional donations of 586,080 doses of COVID-19 vaccines. The doses consisted of 300,000 doses of Sinovac from the Chinese government and 286,080 doses of AstraZeneca from COVAX.
The additional doses are a boost to the East African nation which recently announced strict conditions for certain groups of people in relation to receiving vaccinations.
The government ordered more than 357,500 teachers to receive full COVID-19 vaccination before reopening schools for all learners across the country.
Parliament also made it mandatory for the country’s legislators to get vaccinated against COVID-19 before being allowed to attend parliament sessions.
In the face of the COVID-19 threat, the Ugandan government shut educational institutions first in March 2020 and again on June 18, 2021, after a post-first pandemic wave phased re-opening.
The second lockdown, which ran for 42 days, has been partially lifted, but schools remain closed leaving a total of 15.1 million learners locked home.
Uganda has so far reported a total of 97,453 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,931 deaths.
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