KAMPALA — President Yoweri Museveni on Saturday July 31, will address the nation on the next steps to follow before the current extended lockdown ends, the Presidency said.
Slated for 8pm, the presidential address on Covid-19 will give an update on the country’s fight against COVID-19 and related issues.
“President Kaguta Museveni will this Saturday July 31, 2021 starting at 8pm address Ugandans on COVID19 and related issues,” Senior Presidential Press Secretary Lindah Nabusayi said.
Nabusayi added that the address will be broadcast live on all Television and Radio stations.
On Monday, Dr. Monica Musenero, the Chief Epidemiologist at the Covid-19 Taskforce said government still aims to inoculate 22 million people, about half of the country’s population, to enable the economy to fully re-open.
Dr. Musenero also a presidential advisor on epidemics said that lifting coronavirus containment protocols before mass vaccination will have repercussions.
“This is a tough time. Its because we are fighting a very dangerous enemy. This walk hasn’t been easy but here we are, we have achieved something together, with the lockdown in place, we have managed to bring down the cases, which were just climbing astronomically and soon we shall start to see a steady decline in death due to Covid-19,” Dr. Musenero said.
Dr. Musenero noted government has been frustrated by the difficulties in accessing the vaccines but the praised lockdown, saying “it was in itself meant to push down numbers”.
“The lockdown helped us ro bring down numbers, you all saw the deaths, hospitals were filled to capacity, but we managed to contained that. The lockdown has helped us so much in stopping the spread,” she added.
Health Minister Ruth Aceng recently said government has finalized legal requirements for the purchase of 2 million Johnson and Johnson vaccines through the Africa Export-Import Bank and the African Union.
She added government is at different stages for securing doses from Cuba, Russia, China and the U.K.
Uganda has so far received only 1.14 million doses through the Covax facility and the Indian government.
It is also due to receive a batch of 285,600 doses under Covax in a few weeks, another of 688,800 in August and a donation of 300,000 doses from Sinovac later this month.
Uganda has administered over 1 million doses and registered about 92,724cases since March last year.