Uganda’s Ministry Of Health To Destroy Over 400,000 Expired Moderna Covid-19 Vaccine Doses

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Uganda's Ministry Of Health To Destroy Over 400,000 Expired Moderna Covid-19 Vaccine Doses

Moderna Covid-19 Vaccines

By Uganda Online Media

President Yoweri Museveni has appointed Maj Tom Magambo who has been in the Internal Security Organisations(ISO) as the new police Criminal Investigations Director.

“President Museveni has promoted Private Tom Magambo to the rank of Major and appointed him Director Criminal Investigations of the Uganda Police Force,” the acting UPDF spokesperson, Lt Col Ronald Kakurungu said in a statement.

Kampala: Uganda’s Ministry of health is set to destroy over 400,000 doses of expired Covid-19 vaccines at a time when less than half of the targeted 22 million people have been vaccinated.

Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng said the vaccines had been supplied to the northern part of Uganda but were not used adding that the expired doses are mainly Moderna and a few doses of AstraZeneca.

Health State Minister Margaret Muhanga had a few weeks ago said the government is working on vaccination drives across the country, especially in northern Uganda where the uptake was low.

She said the low uptake of the vaccine had affected the fight against the virus.

“Due to low uptake of the vaccines, we started vaccination campaigns across the country, starting with the Teso, Lango sub-regions,” she said.

The Ministry of Health had secured over 500,000 doses of Moderna vaccines to be used in November 2021 in a mass vaccination drive in the Acholi sub-region as it sought to hit the target of vaccinating 22 million Ugandans aged 18 and above.

However, only 100,000 doses of the vaccine were used leaving 400,000 doses to go to waste.

According to Aceng, the Moderna vaccines have a short life span and are supposed to be used within a specific period.

“Moderna is ultra-frozen, it has to be thawed. Before use, when it was unutilized in Acholi, we took it to western Uganda but couldn’t utilize it before 30 days,” Aceng said.

Aceng further noted that at least 279 doses of AstraZeneca have expired and these have been withdrawn from the system.

To boost vaccine storage, the government has received cold chain equipment worth $ 8.3 million around Shs 29,075,721,700 to be dispatched for vaccine storage and over 1000 fridges are to be installed in urban health centers.

According to the Ministry of health records, Uganda has so far received 34 million doses of vaccines and vaccinated over 12 million doses of administered.

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