More than 800 people in Uganda have been allegedly injected with a fake COVID-19 vaccine, local media reported Monday in Kigali quoting health officials in Uganda.
Dr Warren Namara, Director of the Health Monitoring Unit was quoted Monday as saying that the fake Covid-19 vaccines given to 800 people contained mostly water. This after laboratory tests were done on the contents of the said vaccines.
Uganda is battling the 3rd wave of Covid-19 with a deadly strain claiming more lives daily and a major hike in infections.
According to official statistics, Uganda has recorded a total of 90,391 cases, and managed to recover 67,114 cases but unfortunately the pandemic has claimed a total of 2353 people since the pandemic reached the East African country in March last year.
As the Uganda government continues to battle the deadly covid-19 emergency, there is massive disinformation and gross malpractices in procurement and management of the pandemic.
Uganda started vaccinating its population in March this year and aims to vaccinate at least 49.6% of its population 21,936,011 with COVID 19 vaccines in different phases.
Each phase is planned to cover 20% of the target population which is about 4,387,202 people.
Among priority recipients of the jab will be health workers employed at public hospitals, followed by those in private-not-for-profit and their counterparts working for profit private health facilities.
The government said there would be no privately-administered vaccinations which, among other reasons, is to prevent citizens against exploitation by unscrupulous private sector players.
CU/abj/APA