Perturbed by the low reception of the COVID-19 vaccination which was aggravated by lack of proper administration capacity, the government of South Sudan is now mulling a more aggressive policy to effect the uptake of the jab.

The government now says citizens without a COVID-19 vaccination certificate could be soon blocked from accessing public services, offices or facilities.

On 25 March, South Sudan received 132, 000 doses of Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine, marking the first vaccine shipment of several consignments that were scheduled to arrive in the country through the global COVAX facility.

Some of the vaccine doses which were intended for about 20 per cent of the country’s population, including the front line healthcare workers, elderly groups, people with underline illness, refugees and displaced persons, among others, got expired without being used.

Apart from this, the exercise received a severe setback with a secretly brewing fear grappling the vaccine administration, forcing the launch to be postponed. It forced the intervention of President Salva Kiir, who convened a sensitisation workshop in Juba to jumpstart the process. But it was still rather lethargic. 

Fear within

According to health authorities, some misinformation had contributed to the rejection of the vaccine, resulting to low turnout for the available doses by the citizens since South Sudan began rolling out the vaccine on April 6.

A senior health official said, this includes, among others, the misconception that COVID-19 vaccine causes barrenness, destroys people genes and that it does not make the receiver immune to disease and even died.

“One of the major challenges that is raised by the citizens are these negative videos on social media. We have assembled those videos whereby some people say those vaccines are not vaccines, but simply some materials for the virus, they don’t protect people,” Dr. Angelo Guop, Director of Emergency Preparedness at the Ministry of Health as a quoted by VOA to have said.

Over 120,000 doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 doses were stuck at the Ministry of Health store due to low turn up for vaccination, according to Dr. Richard Laku, the COVID-19 Incident Manager at Juba Teaching Hospital.

However, on Monday, May 31, Hussein Abdalnagi Ayii Akol, the Vice President for Service Cluster and Chairperson of COVID-19 Taskforce warned that the government could be compelled to impose lockdown should the current trend of lack of adherence to the preventive measures continues.

Directive issued

Mr. Abdalbagi said the new variant of COVID-19 was already spreading at a very high pace in one of the South Sudan’s neighboring countries which requires proactive measures before it hit the country.  

“We will not accept if you come to the public places like hotels and government’s guarded places (institutions) without something to prove that you have been vaccinated against COVID-19 because there’s a new variant which is spreading very fast in one of the neighbouring countries,” said Abdulbagi without naming which country has been affected..

The Vice President also said schools would be forced to shut down should they fail to implement preventive measures, including wearing face marks, washing of hands and maintaining social distances.

“I want to take opportunity to inform all school’s administration that any pupil or student must wear facemask and we as the Taskforce will be forced to shut down the school which does not comply with the rule. If we realise that people are not complying, we will impose lockdown,” he added.

However, in late May, South Sudan sent back 72, 000 doses of coronavirus vaccine to COVAX facility due to its (South Sudan’s)  incapacity to use up the doses while all the priority groups were yet to get the jabs, which Kenya took last week.

“We don’t want to run the risk of expiring here in our hands. It will be accounted for so we are committing back an amount of 72, 000 doses so that they are used by someone who can deploy these doses in one week and then once we finish with our 60 000,” said Dr. Mayen Machuot, Undersecretary in the Ministry of Health.

Though South Sudan’s accumulated COVID-19 confirmed cases have grown to over 10,000 with 115 deaths and 10, 514 recoveries, since the country confirmed its first case in early April 2020; the number could be higher than that.

According to some of the COVID-19 frontline healthcare workers who threatened to lay down their tools due to unpaid nine-month arrears and improvement of working condition, there were no accurate data system management due to demoralized situation at work.

“We will not be able to respond to mortalities. For cases that were confirmed last week, we will not be able to follow up to know their conditions and then for the media and the rest of the world we will not be able to get data as usual,” said Abraham Ajok, manager of the data system at the Ministry of Hearth.

In May, the government downsized the COVID-19 Emergency Response Team citing lack of funding. This has weakened the ability to trace contact and respond to emergency COVID-19 reports.

An internal source from the Vice President’s office told City Review that the government is currently left with just about 12,000 doses of vaccine for a population of 13 million people.

It is unclear how the government would implement the mandatory vaccination certificate to citizens with government health facilities almost empty of doses.

Beside this, the public has lowered guard on the bid to observe COVID-19 safety protocols with most public vehicles carrying full capacity, rakshas and boda bodas also relapsing to status quo before the virus struck.

The City Review carried a spot check in Juba town and ascertained that most people have discarded the compulsory rule of wearing face masks. Some offices and shops are now operating with no hand washing containers and sanitisers are barely found on the entrances.