South Sudan will soon run out of Covid-19 vaccines, months after giving thousands away: minister

South Sudan will soon run out of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines after giving thousands of them away, according to health authorities in the country. 

There are only 1,820 doses remaining, said the Minister of Health Covid-19 Chief of Operations Angelo Guop during the weekend.  

Yet, just two months ago, the world’s youngest nation gave 72,000 doses to Kenya following concerns they could not be administered before expiring. 

South Sudan's current vaccine supplies are likely to be used by July 18, said Guop. 

"These doses are now available in three main hospitals: Juba Teaching Hospital, Juba Military Hospital and Juba Police Hospital," he told journalists. 

In March 2021, the country received 132,000 doses of the vaccine from Covax, with the aim of vaccinating 40 percent of its population according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). 

While a number of health officials and refugees have been vaccinated, just under 60,000 vaccine doses have been administered for a population of around 11 million people according to data from WHO. 

"Safe, effective, and quality vaccines for COVID-19 are our best hope for bringing the pandemic under control," said Dr Fabian Ndenzako, WHO Representative a.i. for South Sudan. 

At the time of publication, there were over 10,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in South Sudan in total and 117 deaths. 

Some 8.3 million people in South Sudan need humanitarian support, according to Unicef - including two out of three children.