HEALTH | COVID-19 | DR WAYENGERA 

KAMPALA - Developing countries are struggling to access vaccines to protect the population against the coronavirus, as rich nations continue to hold on to the doses. 

Instead, developing countries including Uganda, have had to rely on the same rich nations for vaccine donations to be able to inoculate their population. 

“The problem is that when someone gets vaccinated with a particular vaccine, two months later when they are meant to receive their second dose, the vaccine is not available,” says Dr Misaki Wayengera, head of the committee advising government on COVID-19 response. 

“We received many donated vaccines, mixing and matching is of interest.” 

According to Dr Wayengera, mixing of vaccines will support the drive to have more people vaccinated against the virus. However, the lack of data on which vaccines can be mixed is still a challenge. 

“So far it is safe to mix AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines, with AstraZeneca as the prime vaccine and Pfizer as the booster.” 

“We are stuck with one global directive in terms of which vaccines can be mixed. Yet we have several donated vaccines littered all over,” said Dr Wayengera on Tuesday as he addressed journalists on Mixing and Matching vaccines. 

Scientists have called for local studies to establish the safety and profile of mixing various vaccines. A study is being undertaken in Uganda. 

Uganda has five types of vaccines including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, and Sinovac.  

In addition, 18 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine is expected in the country this month to cover 9 million people.  

As of October 24, 2021, a total 2,854,082 doses of vaccines had been administered in a population of about 45 million people in the country. There were also 30 new cases of COVID-19, according to the Ministry of Health. 

Uganda’s target is to vaccinate 4.8 million people by the end of December. Whereas the larger target is to vaccinate about 21.9 million people to control the virus and allow the full opening up of the economy that has been affected by several lockdowns since March last year.