By Awan Achiek
South Sudan’s government says it is rolling out vaccination against COVID-19 across the country on Monday.
The vaccines which will be dispatched to the ten states and the three administrative areas are part of 132,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine from COVAX Facility on March 25.
Speaking to reporters in Juba during the weekly media briefing on Sunday, Dr. Richard Lako, the COVID-19 Incident Manager, said the health ministry said only a few people have so far been vaccinated in South Sudan.
“As a country in terms of vaccination, we are still at the lower side and as of yesterday, the total number of people who have been vaccinated so far is 6,403 and this shows that we still have over 126,000 doses,” Dr. Lako said at Sunday press briefing.
He said the vaccine will be administered in 23 sites in ten states and three administrative areas.
“We started with Juba, the 23 sites are for the 10 states and three administrative areas, we really need to go beyond what we were doing, this accelerating plan put into consideration the remaining days and also the sites and the number of people that will be required per day,” he said.
South Sudan has so far reported 10,653 infections and 155 death as a result of COVID-19