A civilian receives relief food during a government distribution exercise to civilians affected by the lockdown, as part of measures to prevent the potential spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Kampala, Uganda April 4, 2020. Photo REUTERS/Abubaker Lubowa

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni on Sunday re-imposed a strict lockdown that included the closure of schools and the suspension of inter-district travel to help beat back a surge in COVID-19 cases in the East African country.

The new measures, which will be effective from Monday morning, include the closure of all educational institutions, some bans on travel, the shutdown of weekly open markets, and the suspension of church services.

Most of the new restrictions, Museveni said, would be implemented for 42 days. An assessment of their impact will then help the government decide whether to ease or prolong them, he added.

Uganda implemented one of Africa's tightest lockdowns at the beginning of the pandemic more than a year ago, but it was gradually lifted as cases slowed to a trickle.

Last month however infections started to spike and new cases, particularly among younger people, have surged, fuelling fears that the country could slip into an out-of-control second wave.

Museveni said in a televised address on Sunday night that a second wave gripping the country was "diffuse and sustained".

The government, he said, was worried the jump in cases would "exhaust the available bed space and oxygen supply in hospitals unless we constitute urgent public health measures".

"In this wave the intensity of severe and critically ill COVID-19 patients and death is higher than what we experienced in the first wave of the pandemic," he said.

COVID-19 infections in Uganda are on an average daily basis at their peak, with 825 new infections reported each day, according to a Reuters analysis.

From January to April the positivity rate in tested samples was mostly below 3% but the rate started climbing sharply last month, hitting 18% on June 2, according to Ministry of Health data.

The east African country has thus far reported nearly 53,000 positive cases and 383 deaths.

The new restrictions potentially threaten to arrest an already fragile economic recovery from the blow inflicted by last year's lockdown.

Those restrictions contributed to a 1.1% economic contraction in 2020, but the finance ministry had projected before Sunday's new measures that growth would climb to between 4-5% in the fiscal year starting July. - Elias Biryabarema, Reuters

KAMPALA, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Uganda recorded 690 new COVID-19 cases over the past day, bringing the nationwide count to 46,621, President Yoweri Museveni announced late on Saturday.

Museveni said in a televised address that the new cases were confirmed from samples collected from contacts and alert cases on Friday in the country.

A total of 43,401 recoveries and 362 deaths have been registered since the outbreak was declared in the east African country in March 2020, he said.

"The death is low by world standards, but we don't want anyone to die of this avoidable disease," Museveni said.

"The situation is not too bad if we really wake up," he added. - Xinhua

A health worker prepares a dose of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine at a coronavirus vaccination centre at the Wizink Center in Madrid on May 12, 2021. Photo AFP

Kenya is set to receive a consignment of 72,000 AstraZeneca/OXford vaccine doses that South Sudan returned to the Covax facility. 

South Sudan says it will return the doses after concluding it cannot administer the jabs before they expire, a health ministry official told AFP on Tuesday.

The country received 132,000 doses of the vaccine in late March from Covax, the global initiative to ensure lower-income countries receive jabs, but so far has administered less than 8,000 shots.

On Tuesday, Kenya’s vaccine taskforce chair, Dr Willis Akhwale, told the Nation that the doses are expected by Thursday.

“I finished doing the paper work this evening ... everything is set. The batch of 72,000 AstraZeneca doses will be here tomorrow or by Thursday,” he said, but noted that Unicef is the one to determine when they will be delivered.

The announcement comes a week after Kenya's Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe announced that the country had only 100,000 doses of the vaccine left.

CS Kagwe said it was crunch time but asked Kenyans yet to receive their second shots not to panic, saying the first dose offers up to 70 per cent protection.

“We are better off with a first dose than with none. We have not heard of people dying because they did not get the second dose,” he said.

Timelines for getting the second vaccine dose are uncertain due to a shortage occasioned by delays by Covax.

Several challenges

In March, South Sudan received 132,000 doses from Covax but the country’s national taskforce on Covid-19 decided to return before they expire after discussing the matter with the World Health Organization (WHO). 

“We are struggling economically … that’s why we have problems funding the deployment itself. We are actually tightening our belts … that’s why hopefully, in the next two weeks, the 60,000 we have will be dispersed all over the country,” said South Sudan’s Health Ministry undersecretary, Dr Mayen Machuot said in a previous interview. 

“We don’t want to run the risk of [the vaccine] expiring in our hands. It will be accounted for, so we are committing [to return] 72,000 doses so that they are used by [countries that] can deploy them in one week,” Dr Machuot told reporters at a Juba news conference.

He added that South Sudan failed to use its doses because of a slow initial uptake by health workers, delays by Parliament to approve the vaccine’s use, and a lengthy training of people to administer the vaccine.

The Covax facility wrote back to the South Sudanese government, saying it was happy with the arrangement as the doses would not go to waste.

Remaining doses

South Sudan will be left with 52,000 doses that it hopes to use before the expiration date on July 18.

Once that batch is finished, it will request additional doses from Covax, the ministry said.

As in other parts of Africa, a fear of side effects and rumours the vaccine causes impotence or is otherwise unsafe have spurred wariness about vaccines among the population.

Last month, South Sudan was considering disposing 60,000 expired vaccines it received as a donation through the African telecommunications company MTN and the African Union.

To date, South Sudan has recorded 10,686 cases of Covid-19 and 115 deaths.

China and India's efforts

Meanwhile, India and China are stepping up efforts to help other countries with vaccination.

The Chinese government says Beijing is stepping up support for Africa’s post-pandemic recovery, with initial focus on vaccine access, as a “public good”.

And last week, the Indian government, which is battling a Covid-19 crisis that has seen it suffer shortages of treatment supplies, said it was pooling resources to produce more vaccines of different types.

The country authorised more local firms to take foreign orders and deals to produce Covishield (known abroad as AstraZeneca vaccine), Covaxin (India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine) and Sputnik V, the Russian vaccine; all of which have been authorised for emergency use by the WHO.

The decision, officials said, was a result of soaring infections and inadequate vaccine production by the two main private manufacturers, the Serum Institute of India (SII), which makes AstraZeneca's vaccine, and Bharat Biotech, that makes Covaxin.

Dr Randeep Guleria, an Indian pulmonologist and the current director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), told the media that Sputnik V manufacturers had joined efforts with a number of Indian companies in the country to ramp up production of their product.

“New plants [are] being set up by Bharat Biotech and SII by July-August. We will a have large number of doses available in about two months, we will get vaccines from outside too” the director said. - Leon Lidigu, AFP/The EastAfrican