The Ministry of Health still has 13.4 million unutilized COVID-19 vaccines, the Public Accounts Committee – PAC Central Government has learned. The Health Ministry Permanent Secretary, Dr. Diana Atwine, says that the country risks losing huge sums of money that was used to procure the vaccines if they expire without being utilized. Some of the vaccines are scheduled…
Two people in Palorinya refugee settlement in Obongi district have tested positive for meningitis, health officials have revealed. Meningitis is caused by inflammation of the meninges that surround the brain and spinal cord and protect the central nervous system. The two, cases which are among South Sudanese refugees have been isolated at Belameling Health Center II in Zone 1,…
The Uganda Ministry of Health in collaboration with Kids Operating Room, a global health charity, has today unveiled the first ever Children Surgery National Plan, a five-year strategy that aims to scale up paediatric surgical services to regional referral and general hospitals as well as training of paediatric surgical workforce. Uganda currently has eight paediatric…
The COVID Treatment Quick Start Consortium announced today that the governments of Zambia, Laos, Malawi and Rwanda have received shipments of PAXLOVID™ (nirmatrelvir/ritonavir), Pfizer’s COVID-19 oral treatment. Zambia was the first country to receive the treatment through the consortium, with an initial shipment of 1,000 courses of PAXLOVID™ reaching Lusaka in late December 2022 as…
WHO has updated its tracking system and working definitions for variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to better correspond to the current global variant landscape, to independently evaluate Omicron sublineages in circulation, and classify new variants more clearly when required. SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple variants…