The country that admitted that hundreds of its citizens received fake coronavirus vaccines

About 800 people have received one or more fake coronavirus vaccines in Uganda, the government said today, which attributed the episode to “unscrupulous” doctors and nurses.

The fake vaccines, sometimes mixed with water, were given between May and June, amid a wave of infections in a country averaging 1,700 new cases a day.

Suspected crooks were targeting people willing to pay for their injections when doses were scarce in Uganda, said Warren Naamara, a health services supervisor in the presidency.

“Unscrupulous people, with the intention of making money, have deceived the public with fake covid-19 vaccines,” Naamara said, adding that “two health workers have been arrested and a doctor has been arrested. on the run”.

The analyzes showed that the products did not contain any dangerous products and that “there was only water in some of them,” said the official, quoted by the AFP news agency.

Those involved charged an equivalent between $ 25 and $ 120 per request.

Since the start of the pandemic, Uganda has recorded 91,162 cases and 2,425 deaths, according to the latest count released today by the Ministry of Health.