By Jimmy Muhumuza
Parliament
MPs on the COVID-19 task force have tasked the minister of health to inform them how much it will cost to have the 22m eligible Ugandans to be vaccinated.
Aceng informed MPs that she doesn’t know when the country will be able to receive the 11million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines that have been acquired by the country.
Aceng informed MPs that the country has decided to purchase the Vaccines through the Covax facility and even though they have paid and concluded all the legal requirements she doesn’t know when the country will receive the Vaccines.
At first, Aceng had informed MPs that the country will this month receive a donation of 286,800doses of Astrazenaca Vaccine from Covax facility,300,000doses of synovial and next month they will receive another 688,800 doses of Astrazenaca Vaccine.
She also says that the country has purchased 9million doses of Vaccines from the Covax facility while they have purchased other 2million doses of johnson and johnson through the African union
The MPs however demanded to know why the country doesn’t purchase them from the open market to which Aceng noted it will be expensive.
Aceng says that they are buying the Astrazenaca Vaccine from the Covax facility at 4dollars per dose while the open market goes for 15dollars per dose.
She says the Russian Vaccine goes for 29dolkars per dose while the Chinese Vaccine Sinovac goes for 20 dollars per dose which says is way expensive when you compare those rates through the coax facility.
The MPs, however, rejected this saying saving people’s lives is more important with the chairperson of the taskforce Abdul Katuntu noting that the country is already spending 100 billion shillings on enforcing the lockdown and feeding the population which money would have been used to buy Vaccines.
The MPs say that they would like the ministry to tell them the cost per Vaccine and let the country decide whether it’s worth it.
Aceng in response promised to provide them with the cost of each Vaccine on the open market including the cost of administering them.
