By Simon Deng
South Sudan could suffer a deadly second wave of COVID-19 infections like it’s neighbor Uganda and Kenya due to low vaccine uptake, said an experts with the World Health Organization.
Guyo Gurasha, WHO Emergency Preparedness Officer for the World Health Organization warned that the deadly new variants like the Indian variant reported in Uganda could easily be transmitted to South Sudan if strong measures are not put in place.
“This calls upon countries to take action in strengthening public health and social measures so as to really control spread of COVID-19, many people are not adhering to using facemasks and hygiene,” said Gurasha at the weekly COVID-19 briefing to journalists in Juba.
He said that Kenya, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among the 14 countries in the region facing COVID-19 resurgence, noting that public health social measures should be strictly observed to curb spread of another the second wave in South Sudan.
“We have delta variant which is more transmissible and actually spreading we need effective use of public health and social measures,” said Guyo.
Guyo disclosed that globally COVID-19 cases have reached 181 million, 3.9 million deaths and 2.8 billion doses of vaccines have so far been administered.
Africa registered 5.35 million cases with over 140,000 deaths and less than 50 million doses have been administered across the continent, he said.
John Rumunu, Director General for Preventive Health Services said that vaccination is going on smoothly, noting that the health ministry has prepared paperwork for receiving the next doses of vaccines.
“Our dashboard shows that we have 45,039 doses deployed, 42,295 first doses and 2,754 as second doses. The number of doses remaining are 14,961 we have an average vaccine deployment of 1000 doses per day,” said Rumunu.
He revealed that they have completed all the necessary paperwork for receiving the next batch of vaccines.
The ministry health confirmed three new COVID-19 within the last 24 hours bringing the total to 10,827 cases, recoveries 10,639 and 116 deaths since April 5th last year when the first case was registered.
