Africa CDC ranks Uganda among the countries at high risk for covid-19. The institution even advises people who are not up to date with their vaccinations not to travel there.

Uganda announced last week it will receive $27 million from the U.S. to accelerate its vaccination campaign against Covid-19.

The funding is aimed at immunizing about 12 million people, including nearly six million children aged 12 and older. President Yoweri Museveni says the targeted people will receive either one dose of the J&J vaccine or two doses of another vaccine. The initiative is part of a global U.S. scheme to vaccinate at least 70% of the populations of focus countries, including 11 sub-Saharan African countries, by the end of December 2022.

“After the Delta variant, working together, we re-invigorated efforts to get people vaccinated and raise awareness. This made quite a difference and that is why Uganda was chosen for this initiative. The success of that effort made us realize that if we intensify what we are doing we can reach that target by September,” said Natalie Brown (pictured), the USA Ambassador to Uganda.

Uganda kicked off its vaccination campaign on March 10, 2021, targeting health workers, people with co-morbidities, people aged 50 years or older, and frontline or essential workers as a priority. Despite having enough vaccines to fully immunize more than 40% of its population, only 34.16% of the population is partially vaccinated, and 5.45% is fully immunized, according to Africa CDC estimates.

Jean-Marc Gogbeu, intern