South Sudan will finally launch the vaccination campaign on Tuesday, April 6, in Juba, after previous attempts to conduct the exercise hit misses.

Director-General for Primary Healthcare Dr Riak Atem revealed on Sunday that the exercise would begin with the injection of the healthcare workers at Juba Teaching Hospital.

“Our first target is the healthcare workers as you can see in the report they are at a high risk than the rest of the population. They will be the first target for this vaccination,’’ Dr Atem told the media.

He revealed that there will be four vaccination centres in Juba municipality. The centres include State House (J1), Juba Teaching Hospital, Giada Military Hospital and Police Hospital in Juba.

The vaccines are part of the 132,000 doses of AstraZeneca that jetted into the country on March 25, which were received by a delegation of state officers led by Minister of Health Elizabeth Achuei.

After arriving on Thursday, the vaccination exercise was lined up for a launch at J1 as the ministry revealed that an unnamed person within the presidency would receive the dose. But this did not happen.

On Tuesday, President Salva Kiir and other high-profile government officials were sensitised on the safety of the vaccine, after which the president cleared it for safety. He directed the National Taskforce on COVID-19 to go ahead and implement the administration of the vaccine.