LATEST UPDATE: Uganda’s first batch of Covid-19 Vaccines will arrive in the country this week, the Ministry of Health has confirmed.
Minister Dr Ruth Aceng made the announcement on Tuesday through a tweet revealing that the first batch that will contain 864,000 doses will arrive on Friday March 5th 2021 and the vaccination exercise will start on March 10..
The vaccines are coming in from the British factory AstraZeneca.
“A team of well-trained health workers will be based at the designated service points to provide services. All persons eligible for vaccination will be required to provide a National Identification Card in the case of Ugandan citizens or a passport in the case of non-Ugandans,” she said.
A COVID-19 jab is given intramuscularly on the left upper arm – 0.5mls each.
She said the first people to be vaccinated will be health workers from public, private not for profit and private health facilities because they are at the frontline in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and are vulnerable to infection, as has been shown by the statistics of infection (1,892) and death among health workers (19).
The second group will be the teachers who will be required to access vaccines from the nearest Public Health facility, starting from HC III up to a National Referral Hospital. These will be followed by all persons above 50 years of age.
The next category eligible for vaccination are the 18- to 50-year-olds who have the following underlying health conditions: hypertension, diabetes, cancer, organ diseases such as Liver, Kidney or heart disease.
“Each category will be alerted on the days on which to report for vaccination,” she said.
What is AstraZeneca vaccine?
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, also known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, or AZD1222, is a viral vector vaccine. Scientists used an adenovirus, originally derived from chimpanzees, and modified it with the aim of training the immune system to mount a strong response against SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19).
How effective is AstraZeneca Covid vaccine?
The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine showed an effectiveness of about 62% in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 disease beginning 2 weeks after the second dose.
Uganda’s Covid-19 Cumulative Cases stand at 40,367 with 334 deaths registered and 14,989 recoveries.
The arrival of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 Vaccine will come as a huge boost to overcome the grappling effects of the pandemic.
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