South Sudan runs out of COVID-19 vaccines

JUBA, South Sudan

Health authorities in South Sudan said Sunday that the country has run out of COVID-19 vaccines after exhausting the supply of AstraZeneca doses it received from the COVAX facility in March this year.

John Rumunu, director-general for preventive health services in the Ministry of Health, said they have officially ended vaccinations across the country.

“We have closed down all of our over 90 COVID-19 vaccination centers because we have run out of vaccines,” Rumunu told reporters.

He said South Sudan has vaccinated 56,989 people since the country launched its vaccination campaign against COVID-19 in the capital Juba on April 6.

“We managed to finish all the doses before the expiry date. We do not have vaccines remaining and we do not have any vaccine expiring in the cold chain. We have about 4% of wasted vaccines. This is within the acceptable range of wastage,” he added.

The country received 132,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine from the COVAX facility on March 25 this year.

The COVAX facility aims to deliver vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.

South Sudan has so far reported 10,959 infections and 117 deaths.