DAR ES SALAAM, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- The government of Tanzania has released 4 million U.S. dollars for importation of vaccines for infants to offset shortages in the country, a senior official said on Thursday.
Ummy Mwalimu, Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Children and the Elderly, said the Treasury has already released the money for the importation of the vaccines that will last for six months.
"The money is part of 8 million dollars annual budget that the government allocates into vaccines for infants," she told a news conference in the country's political capital Dodoma.
The minister said Tanzania has had a shortage of three of the seven vital vaccines for infants during the past few weeks, forcing the government to act promptly.
She mentioned the vaccines, which were in short supply, as Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG), oral polio vaccine (OPV) and Tetanus Toxid (TT).
BCG is primarily used to prevent the infants from contracting tuberculosis while OPV and TT are used to prevent poliomyelitis and tetanus, respectively.
Mwalimu said the government has already ordered for the vaccines through the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and that it expected to receive a consignment of million doses of BCG on Sept. 28.
She added that the government will receive 2 million doses of polio vaccines on Sept. 19 while some 1.24 million doses of tetanus will be received on Sept. 26.
