Juba, South Sudan,
June 28, 2021 – The Ministry of Health says the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) will deliver the second consignment of 60,000 doses of AstraZeneca.
Addressing reporters at a press briefing Sunday in the capital Juba, the Director-General of Infectious Disease Control at the Ministry of Health Dr. John Rumunu, said arrangements were ongoing to receive additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“We are in the arrangement of the second batch of the vaccine. We have completed all the paperwork to get our share, and it is about 60,000 doses,” said the director.
In April, the COVAX facility delivered the first consignment of 132,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine but over 70,000 doses were returned back over the fear of looming expiration date.
Rumunu said while about 45,000 doses of vaccine were delivered to the ten states, the remaining 14,961 doses have until 18 July to expire.
“We are remaining with 14,961 doses, and we have 21 days remaining until the expiry date. Our data shows our daily yield is over 1,000. It is actually like 1,800 doses per day. With that, we are confident that we will complete the remaining doses before they get expired next month,” he said.
South Sudan has demonstrated the incapacity to handle large volumes of vaccine doses and the process of inoculation has been sluggish.
At the national level, the government could not vaccinate even half of the population within the capital, Juba. The situation could be worse at the states’ level.
The perception of people toward the vaccine remained poor.
In May this year, an insider from the Ministry of Health blamed them for failing to capacitate frontline workers through adequate training. The source added that taking doses to the states would make little sense if no proper education and awareness is made.
Recently, Hussein Abdelbagi Ayii, the Vice President for Service Cluster and Chairperson of the National Task Force on the COVID-19 Pandemic threatened that the government would make COVID-19 vaccination
