Uganda receives additional AstraZeneca vaccines, NMS confirms

By Mariam Namakula

National Medical Stores (NMS) has confirmed the arrival of an additional consignment of the AstraZeneca vaccines last night.

Ms Sheila Nduhukire, the NMS spokesperson, said Uganda had received an additional consignment of 153,900 and 501,153 AstraZeneca doses from Belgium and France, respectively.

In a space of only two days, the country has received three consignments of the Covid-19 vaccines with the latest being the 1,674,270 Pfizer vaccine from the US government.

As of September 22, Uganda has received a total of 2,294,000 doses. Government is targeting to receive 11,978,840 by the end of this year.

An additional consignment of AstraZeneca vaccines is still on the list of those expected with 1,000,000 doses from the COVAX facility and 350,000 from Ireland in mid-October.

According to the Ministry of Health, the target is to at least vaccinate the 4.8 million priority groups by the end of this year.

As of yesterday, Uganda had received four types of vaccines, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Sinovac.

The country has registered more than 122,502 confirmed cases and 3,135 deaths.