With slightly over a million doses of COVID-19 vaccines donated to Uganda so far, President Yoweri Museveni says the country is on track to produce its own vaccine by November next year.
Museveni who was speaking at the opening of the World Health Summit Regional Meeting held in Munyonyo said that the current global rush to acquire vaccines by the rich at the expense of poor countries, also referred to as vaccine nationalism is a good lesson for African Countries that don’t want to innovate.
He said unlike many countries in Africa, Uganda’s only urgent need now is to acquire raw materials for the vaccine under development by researchers at Makerere University.
President Museveni said what Africa needs is raw materials to produce its own Covid vaccines and not donations from the developed nations.
He spoke after the World Health Organization Director General Dr. Tedros pointed out in his opening remarks that Africa has only contributed 1.6 percent to the people vaccinated so far globally.
Tedros said that in just the last one week, infections in Africa had increased by 40percent and made fresh appeals for vaccine equity, noting that the COVAX facility needs an additional 200million doses for poor countries by September.
However, in his remarks, the Germany Ambassador to Uganda Matthias Schauer said his country which houses the summit secretariat plans to donate 30million doses of the vaccine to developing countries.
