Africa-Press – Uganda. The Ministry of Health yesterday blamed the shortage and limited availability of Covid-19 vaccines in some districts on poor coordination between respective district leadership and the National Medical Stores (NMS).
Mobile vaccination centres in Kampala — many of which eased access to jabs — are being closed, with health workers confessing that they didn’t have Pfizer despite the presence of millions of doses at NMS.
The district health office of Wakiso said they had run out of vaccines even as the country races to inoculate seven million people ahead of the full reopening of the economy in January next year.
Ms Anifa Kawooya, the State minister for Health in-charge of General Duties, said in an interview yesterday that issues of shortage and limited availability shouldn’t be heard because ‘Uganda has more than enough vaccines’.
“If they [districts] don’t have [vaccines], then they are not collecting them. We have vaccines in the stores. A lot of vaccines are being released every day,” she said before questioning why Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has closed the mobile vaccination centres.
When reached yesterday for a comment about the closing of mobile vaccination centres and lack of Pfizer jabs, Dr Dan Okello, the head of public health services at KCCA, promised to revert. He had, however, not yet responded by press time.
Mr Paul Okware, the chief stores and operations officer at NMS, told Daily Monitor that they have all types of vaccines in their stores but accountability is required before dispensing doses.
“Wakiso District requested [for more doses of vaccines] and I think it will be delivered today (yesterday). The other thing is that you don’t just ask for more doses; you have to demonstrate how you have used the vaccines before we give you get more doses,” he said.
The government has so far administered 7.6m doses of vaccines out of 23m doses received since March. About 5.7m people have received the first dose, with a further 1.2m fully inoculated.
Ugandans are now spending up to about four hours for their turn to be jabbed at the vaccination centres in Kampala. This represents a five-fold increase in waiting time that mobile centres had yielded.
Experts such as Prof David Serwadda, the head of government Covid-19 vaccine advisory committee, fear that the gaps in mobilisation and limited resources for local governments to roll out vaccines will have devastating effects on the capacity to hit the vaccination target.
Ms Margaret Muhanga, the State minister for Primary Health Care, told this newspaper on Tuesday that the government is working hard to increase vaccination coverage in the country.
“We are on a campaign for accelerated vaccination. Ms Kawooya went to Kigezi sub-region. I am in Rwenzori sub-region. [Dr Jane] Aceng [the Health Minister] went to the north because we want to use these vaccines. They are too many. By the end of the year, we shall have 26 million doses,” she said.
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