At least 800 people in Uganda have received counterfeit COVID-19 vaccines, officials revealed on Wednesday.
Police, Ministry of Health officials and the State House Health Monitoring Unit have arrested two nurses for injecting people with fake shots and issuing fake certificates. However, the doctor who led the operation is on the move.
During a press conference in the capital Kampala, Dr. Wallen Naamara, head of the health unit, said the network deceived many people and businesses.
“It is unfortunate that some medical workers administer fake COVID-19 jabs to unsuspecting people. We did secret work and arrested two nurses in action,” she said.
According to her, the injections were mostly from companies that paid 200,000 Ugandan shillings ($ 54) for vaccination of each of their workers.
A representative of Uganda National Medical Stores, a government-owned organization mandated to procure, store and distribute drugs, said the items seized by the nurses were not procured from them. The drugs had no government label, required by law, the representative added.
With 543 new infections and 34 related deaths, the East African country has so far confirmed 79,979 COVID-19 cases and 1,023 deaths.
It received 964,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in March and more than 800,000 people have since been vaccinated. Another 175,200 doses arrived in June.
The country’s parliament is closed for two weeks until July 11, when 160 people in the complex, including 14 legislators, tested positive.
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