The Commander of the Special Forces, Lt Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has Tuesday afternoon received his first dose of the COVID19 Vaccine which was rolled out in the country recently.
Using his Twitter account, Gen Muhoozi announced the development and posted pictures of him receiving the jabs.
“Today, it was my pleasure to open the covid-19 vaccination campaign within SFC by taking my first shot of AstraZeneca vaccine. I thank H.E. @kagutamuseveni, the Ministry of Health and our development partners for the quick acquisition and roll out of this vaccine,” he tweeted.
The Ministry of Health on March 5 received 864,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, shipped via the COVAX facility – the World’s facility for universal access to COVID-19 vaccines. The COVAX facility allocated 3,552,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Uganda for the period of January – June 2021. The remaining 2,688,000 doses are expected in the country by June 2021.
The Ministry also received another 100,000 doses from the government of India.
Uganda targets to vaccinate 49.6 per cent of the population, which is about 21,936,011, in a phased manner. Each phase is planned to cover 20 per cent of the population which is approximately 4.38 million people.
Gen Muhoozi now joins Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, the Health Minister and many other top ranking government officials who have so far received the AstraZeneca Vaccine. Several Ugandans have since the start of vaccination on March 10, asked top ranking government officials to receive the vaccine first in order to serve as an example.
Ugandans on twitter are already showering the military General with praise for taking a step to act as an example to the rest of the countrymen. Among these, is the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Frank Tumwebaze who said Gen Muhoozi’s decision will bolster public confidence in the vaccine.
“Congrats Gen @mkainerugaba on taking the #CovidVaccine. Your decision helps to bolster public confidence and buy-in. Congrats to @MinofHealthUG for this vaccination rollout,” reads Minister Tumwebaze’s tweet.
Others are Aine Melisa who said: “COVID-19 vaccines are an important tool to help stop the pandemic. After vaccination every one in the World is entitled to that.Thanks general for taking your 1st shot.”
Nuwamanya Isaac wrote: “Thank you for leading by example Gen Sir. The country is proud of you.”
According to the Ministry of Health, Phase 1 of vaccination will cover health workers both public and private who are estimated to be 150,000, security personnel estimated to be 250,000, teachers in both public and private institutions and other essential workers estimated at 550,000. Other groups targeted in the first phase include persons aged above 50 years and above who are about 3.3million as well as persons with underlying conditions who are roughly 500,000.
Uganda so far has 40,591 commutative cases of COVID-19, 15,099 recoveries and only 334 deaths. By Monday 1,215 people had been vaccinated in Uganda.