Africa-Press – Uganda. National Medical Stores (NMS) and the Ministry of Health are sending conflicting information on how single-shot Johnson and Johnson Covid-19 vaccines procured using taxpayers money, were utilised.
Ms Sheila Nduhukire, the NMS spokesperson, said on Monday that they were waiting for orders from the Ministry of Health to dispatch the highly sought after vaccines.
But this was contrary to the Health minister’s communication last Friday that the vaccines had already been utilised.
While responding to journalists about the fate of the vaccines, Ms Nduhukire said: “We will roll out Johnson and Johnson on the recommendations of the Ministry of Health.”
But Dr Jane Aceng, the Health minister, in a press briefing in Kampala last Friday said: “So far, we have received 650,000 doses of Johnson and Johnson vaccine which was utilised in Kampala. In two weeks’ time, we shall get another 750,000. In December, we shall get 1.2 million doses [of the same vaccine].”
She added that Ugandans should go with vaccines that are available and not focus on only Johnson and Johnson.
Daily Monitor met people in Kampala who confessed to or said their friends had received the single-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccines last week.
When asked about Dr Aceng’s remarks yesterday, Ms Nduhukire said people can go with the position of the Health minister on the issue.
NMS is a government agency mandated to buy, store and distribute medicines and vaccines.
But sources in government said the vaccines were being secretly administered at Makerere University Hospital to “a selected few.”
One of the officials at the hospital, who preferred to remain anonymous, said they were administering the vaccines on Sunday.
This newspaper reported in July that the government had cumulatively set aside Shs41b to buy Covid vaccines, which were being sourced from different countries, including the United States, UK, Cuba, Russia, and China.
Government statistics indicate that so far 3.5 million out of 8.9 million doses of different types of vaccines it acquired through donations and direct procurement have been administered.
The government is racing to inoculate around 7 million people so as to fully reopen the economy next year.
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