Fact-Check: Has the South Sudan Government Announced Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination?

On Wednesday 13th October 2021, a press release by the office of The Vice President for Service Cluster and Chairman of the National Taskforce on COVID-19, Hussein Abdelbagi Akol, announced that Public and Private Institutions will now have to undergo Mandatory COVID-19 Test and Vaccination.

By David Uku

Several media reports published in the last few days state that the South Sudan government has announced a new mandatory COVID-19 Test and Vaccination for all private and public institutions in the country, 211 Check was contacted to verify.

Findings: 

On Wednesday 13th October 2021, a press release by the office of The Vice President for Service Cluster who also doubles as the Chairman of the National Taskforce on COVID-19, Hussein Abdelbagi Akol, announced that Public and Private Institutions will now have to undergo Mandatory COVID-19 Test and Vaccination.

“We will carry out mass testing, Vaccination programs, Rapid Diagnostic Tests,  in all the public and private institutions. This is to caution all the institutions because in the next few months, travelling outside might require mandatory COVID-19 vaccine certificates and it can help to gauge the level of infections in the country and adhere to the Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs),” partly reads the announcement.

John Pasquale Rumunu, the Health Ministry’s Director-General for Preventive Health Services and Acting COVID-19 Incident Manager said on Sunday they are set to roll out mass testing using the rapid diagnostic test to gauge the level of infection in the country for both public officials and the private sector in a bid to contain coronavirus. 

‘“The taskforce resolved to carry out mass vaccination program in all the public and private institutions, this is to caution all the institutions to know that in the next few months to come travelling outside might require mandatory COVID-19 vaccine certificates” he told Journalists in Juba on Sunday during the regular media briefing on COVID-19. 

Sacha Bootsman, World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 Incident manager in South Sudan disclosed that so far only 0.3 per cent of South Sudan’s 12.2 million population is vaccinated. According to her, they have administered 120,412 vaccine doses to 35,755 people out of 2.4 million targets they had set in April this year when vaccination commenced.

South Sudan has vaccinated 22,103 of its health workers with only 2,782 receiving the Johnson and Johnson jabs since October 8 when the vaccination campaign was launched.

The United States donated 152,950 doses of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine to South Sudan in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic on 14th September 2021, it is the vaccine currently being used the country following the completion of the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccines from the COVAX facility. It should be noted that South Sudan has not bought a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

COVID-19 Cases:

South Sudan has a total of 12,223 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 11,726 recoveries and 130 deaths since April last year when the first case was registered in the country  

Conclusion:

It is TRUE that the Government has announced mass COVID-19 testing and vaccination. The announcement has been made by both the National Taskforce on COVID-19 and the Ministry of Health.