Uganda, March 18 -- Science and Technology Minister Monica Musenero has lashed out at Ugandans who mocked her for buying mice at Shs8m each to facilitate the development of COVID-19 vaccine research, saying they were the cheapest on the market.

She said the four mice were special since they possess some human genes and were on very high demand.

"Remember the mice, if you want to know whether I was annoyed or not, I wasn't because, for me, it showed me where we are. Ugandans thought that research could be done using rats that run around their houses. You have to vaccinate special mice, worth Shs8m each, and those were the cheapest on the market. Others were saying they were at $100,000 and for us even to get, it took us a year of waiting...