KAMPALA, Uganda, March 8 – Uganda on Sunday received a second batch of 100,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from India.
Ruth Aceng, minister of health, received the vaccines at the Entebbe International Airport, 40 km south of the capital Kampala, according to a ministry tweet.
The country on Friday received the initial batch of 864,000 AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX facility.
According to the Ministry of Health, the country’s vaccination program will be officially launched on Monday, and rolled out countrywide on Wednesday.
The ministry said the doses will be used to vaccinate persons that provide essential services and are high risk of exposure, including elderly people, health workers, teachers and soldiers.
“This is just the beginning of our journey to vaccinate an estimated 22 million against COVID-19. We shall continue to encourage every Ugandan to patiently wait for their turn to receive this vaccine,” Aceng said on Friday when receiving the first batch.
Uganda requires at least 45 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to vaccinate the 45 million people in the country and extra doses to cater to the refugee population, according to the Ministry of Health.
China has donated some 300,000 doses of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines to Uganda, and the ministry is working on technical processes for receiving it.
As of Friday, Uganda had registered 40,464 cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19, 15,065 recoveries and 334 deaths since the first case was reported on March 22, 2020, according to the ministry.
