Uganda to receive 300,000 more doses of COVID-19 vaccine from China

KAMPALA, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's vice-president Jessica Alupo has said that the east African country is set to receive some 300,000 more doses of COVID-19 vaccine from China.

Alupo in a tweet on Friday said this new batch of vaccine doses would be donated by the Asian country.

"As government, we applaud this development and our strong bilateral ties with China," Alupo added.

Uganda has already received some 300,000 doses of the Sinovac vaccines from the Chinese government. The country's National Medical Stores on Wednesday said it had started the distribution of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines across the country.

According to the ministry of health, Uganda expects to receive at least 12.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines by early 2022.

The country aims at vaccinating about 22 million people, or nearly half the population, as a measure to put the pandemic at bay.

As of Friday, about 1.35 million doses have been administered since the exercise started in March this year.