South Sudan’s health ministry has said it has arranged to receive the second consignment of 60,000 doses of the Covid-19 AstraZeneca vaccine from the COVAX facility before the remaining 14,961 doses expire on 18 July 2021.
The ministry said it has deployed over 45,000 doses of the vaccine in the ten states but remains worried about the shelf life of the remaining vaccines.
Speaking to journalists during a press briefing on Sunday in Juba, Dr. John Rumunu, the Director-General of Infectious Disease Control at the health ministry revealed plans to bring the second batch of Covid-19 vaccines to the country.
“We are in the arrangement of the second batch of the vaccine. We have completed all the paperwork to get our share, and it is about 60,000 doses,” he said.
The health ministry said the remaining 14,961 doses will expire in 21 days.
“We are remaining with 14,961 doses, and we have 21 days remaining until the expiry date. Our data shows our daily yield is over 1,000. It is actually like 1,800 doses per day. With that, we are confident that we will complete the remaining doses before they get expired next month.” Dr. Rumunu said.
South Sudan received its first batch of 132,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines via the COVAX facility in March this year.