The first batch of government procured Johnson & Johnson vaccines arrived in Uganda on October 7, 2021, the Ministry of Health announced.
According to the ministry’s Senior PRO Emmanuel Ainebyoona, a consignment of 196,800 J&J COVID-19 vaccines arrived at Entebbe International Airport on Thursday evening and were received by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary Dr Diana Atwine.
The consignment is the first of it’s kind to be introduced into the country ever since the ministry of health rolled out nationwide covid vaccination programmes in March 2021. Ever since, the vaccines used have been acquited as donations lobbied tbrough third parties including The COVAX facility, AU, or donated by individual countries.
Johnson & Johnson is a single dose COVID19 vaccine and the procurement was done through the African Union.
Recently, Uganda receieved 1,764,280 doses of Pfizer vaccines from the government of United States in support of the ongoing vaccination exercise. It was the biggest consignment the country has so far received in its frantic effort to vaccinate atleast 21 million high-risk population.
Earlier, the country had received AstraZeneca vaccines, Modena and Chinese Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines.
In his last nation address, president Yoweri Museveni mentioned that Uganda expects 11 million doses of covid vaccine by December this year.
