Ministry Of Health Denies Selling COVID-19 Vaccines To Tycoon Hamis Kiggundu.

The Ministry of Health has come clear on the allegations made by The Daily Monitor in their news today that claimed sale of COVID-19 vaccines to City trader, Hamis Kiggundu secretly. According to the news story quoted on the newspaper’s website of a story dated July 19 and headlined as, “Covid-19 vaccines ‘sold’ to city trader secretly”, it claimed vaccination of people on Sunday.

It claimed with a picture that Ministry of Health vehicles ferried COVID-19 vaccines and doctors to immunise people at Ham towers in Kampala yesterday.

“The Ministry of Health last week gave Hammis Kiggundu 2,000 doses of the scarce COVID-19 vaccines to immunise his tenants and workers, barely two weeks after the businessman donated Shs530 million to bolster the government’s pandemic response,” part of the story stated.

Counteracting these allegations, the Senior Public Relations Officer at the Ministry of Health (MOH), Emmanuel Ainebyoona distanced from these claims in a written document saying they were false accusations. Ainebyoona said that there has been a general low turn up for vaccination in Kampala Capital City in line with the measure instituted to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the country due to the ongoing lockdown.

This has therefore prompted the Ministry of Health to adjust the rollout plan and allocate more vaccines to Wakiso district where most of the people in Kampala reside. On July 3, Kiggundu, a city businessman volunteered to mobilise eligible people among the business community for vaccination by transporting them and ensuring that all COVID-19 SOPs are fully adhered to.

“This act of kindness to support the COVID-19 vaccination exercise is in no way linked to the donation that he offered. It should be noted that Kiggundu’s contribution will be merged with the efforts of the Government to procure additional vaccines, a process that is underway,” Ainebyoona clarified.

MOH reiterated that similar vaccination outreach exercises have been carried out at various office premises including at Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Inspectorate of Government headquarters (IGG), Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) and others.