South Sudan to receive 100,000 doses of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine

Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have said they are expecting 100,000 doses of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine from China.

“The period of its arrival to the country is unknown,” said Boniface Ambani Isindu, the WHO Information, Surveillance and Risk Assessment Team Lead.

Isindu was addressing the press yesterday during the COVID-19 weekly briefing at the Emergency Operation Center in Juba.

The WHO official said the country also expects to receive additional 48,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines from France in late October.

Last month, the country received 59,520 doses of AstraZeneca and it is still carrying out the vaccinations.

“Vaccination is going on for the AstraZeneca that we have and we expect to finish it by end of the month and then we switch to Johnson and Johnson. But we are also expecting the 48,000 AstraZeneca that will come in the country.”

He explained that they would continue with the vaccination of the AstraZeneca as well as J and J.

The priority for AstraZeneca would be given to the counties that did not receive the AstraZeneca. He added the ministry of health would also be working on the modalities of how the two vaccines will be delivered to different counties and how the vaccines will be administered.

Isindu lamented the low turn up for the vaccines, especially among women.

“We have experienced a disparity in the gender [in the] vaccination and we have noted that the access to the vaccines by women; there are fewer women who are coming out for the vaccines compared to the men,” he said.

“The women are 25 per cent and of cause, the males are 75 per cent, so this is being addressed by women groups to ensure that the right information goes to the woman out there probably because of the wrong messages that could be out there that are discouraging women from accessing the vaccine,’’ he assuredly said.

Last month, the Minister of Health Elizabeth Achuei urged women to embrace the COVID-19 vaccines after reporting a low turn-out across the country over alleged fears of side effects.

Dr. Victoria Anib Majur, the Undersecretary at the Ministry of Health, appealed to women to get their jabs saying the vaccines were safe.

She also dismissed what she termed as a wrong perception among the women that vaccines can lead to infertility.