Ministry defends questionable Covid vaccines deal with Ham

The Ministry of Health has admitted to giving vaccine doses to city businessman, Mr Hamis Kiggundu, popularly known as Ham, to vaccinate his workers, but said this was not linked to Shs530m he donated for the government’s pandemic fight.
 The reaction from the ministry follows widespread outrage from the public after Daily Monitor published a story titled: Covid-19 vaccines ‘sold’ to city trader secretly. 

The story unravelled how government gave out 2,000 doses of the scarce Covid-19 vaccines to a private citizen to vaccinate his workers and tenants at a time when tens of designated vaccination centres are out of stock, and many Ugandans are unsuccessful in trying to get vaccinated.
Mr Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the Ministry of Health spokesperson, said they engaged Mr Kiggundu because of the immense difficulty they were facing to mobilise people to exhaust vaccines at hand.

“Due to the on-going lockdown, a measure instituted to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the country, there has been a general low turn up for vaccination in Kampala Capital City. This, therefore, prompted the ministry to adjust the rollout plan and allocate more vaccines to Wakiso District where most of the people in Kampala reside,” he said yesterday.

He continued: “On July 3, 2021, Hamis Kiggundu, a Kampala Businessman, volunteered to mobilise eligible people among the business community for vaccination by transporting them and ensuring that all Covid SOPs are adhered to.”  The ministry said Kampala was given 56,000 doses of the vaccines but they couldn’t exhaust it in the planned period.
However, in June, a few days after receiving the donation of 175,200 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from the French government, the ministry said there was a clear plan to ensure lockdown doesn’t affect vaccination exercise in any way. 

Mr Ainebyoona on June 23, said: “In Kampala, it [vaccination] will be conducted by KCCA and UPDF health workers. Each division will have eight vaccination centres within a walking distance.” 
Although it is still unclear whether another wealthy individual could be allocated substantial doses of the vaccines for discretional use if they donated amounts similar to that of Ham, Mr Ainebyoona said it is not the first time the ministry is doing such dealings.

“The Ministry of Health would like to reiterate that similar vaccination outreach exercises have been carried out at various office premises. These include Uganda Revenue Authority, Inspectorate of Government Headquarters, and Uganda National Oil Company,” he said. 
Mr Ainebyoona also said all Covid-19 vaccines administered in Uganda are free of charge. 

Vaccination
 Uganda started Covid vaccination on March 10 after receiving 964,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from COVAX and the Indian government. In June, it received another 175,200 doses from the french government through COVAX.  The ministry indicates that of the 1,085,382 people who have been vaccinated, up to 879,672 have received their first shot while 205,710 have been fully vaccinated. The government plans to vaccinate 21.9m people.