The Mawogola South Member of Parliament, Gorreth Namugga, wondered if the country is still recording new COVID-19 cases that warrant tough restrictions and slammed the Government for rushing to vaccinate the population.
Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, the Minister of Health says the vaccination of learners will be rolled out during the holidays to enable parents to decide whether or not they want their children vaccinated.
Denis Okello, the Assistant District Health Officer Amuru says they are changing the vaccination strategy by conducting door to door covid-19 vaccination for eligible persons.
According to UNEPI, over 1.3 trillion shillings have been spent on the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination campaign. However, the majority of these funds have been allocated to procuring vaccines and paying health worker allowances but little money was set aside for data entrants which have led to delays in uploading vaccination information
The Ministry had set out to have vaccinated all the targeted 22million people by end of March, but Kyabayinze says they are still struggling to have half of those fully vaccinated and therefore they cannot start enforcing punitive vaccination mandates.
Out of the targeted 22 million people, 13 million representing 60 percent of the targeted group have received one jab while another 2.4 million (32 percent) have got two doses.
Last month, the national COVID-19 Incident Commander Dr. Daniel Kyabayinze told URN that they are yet to upload data of 6.5 million people to their portal.
According to the WHO Africa region office, the African continent has so far received more than 587 million vaccine doses;58 percent through the COVAX Facility, 36percent from bilateral deals and percent through the Africa Vaccines Acquisition Trust (AVAT) of the African Union. In January 2022, 96 million doses were shipped to Africa, which is more than double that of six months ago. However, despite such vaccine stocks, countries are still not vaccinating. So far, only 11 percent of the people on the continent are vaccinated
Addressing journalists at the Media Centre on Friday, the Minister for Health Ruth Aceng said that all passengers aged 18 years and above will have to present Covid-19 vaccination cards indicating full dosage before they are allowed to travel.
Joseph Okado, a Village Health worker in Agule- Okoole in Aukot Sub County says that much as they mobilized the communities for the vaccine, they are not enthusiastic like it was in the first campaig
The first phase of the vaccination targeting health workers, teachers, security personnel, the elderly, and persons above the age of 50 was budgeted to cost Shillings 1.3 trillion. The second phase that is still ongoing and targets communities reporting high infections is budgeted to cost Shillings 46 billion.
But, the CDC says that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines take a few hours to thaw and must be administered quickly once they are no longer being refrigerated. The Pfizer vaccine is only stable for six hours at room temperature while a punctured Moderna vaccine vial is viable for up to 12 hours.
Dr. Henry Mwebesa, the Director-General of Health Services at the Ministry of Health says unvaccinated health workers are a threat to both patients and their families.
So far, Uganda has received over 11.5 million vaccines with an additional nine million Johnson&Johnson vaccines expected to arrive next month. However, data from the health ministry shows that only 3.9 million vaccines have been distributed with only around 750,000 people fully vaccinated.
Initially, President Museveni had tagged school re-opening and opening of other sectors of the economy to the vaccination of people above 18 years However, addressing the nation on Thursday, Museveni seemed to make a U-turn and said that they will not force Ugandans to get vaccinated.
The Deputy Speaker of Parliament Anita Among has notified Members of Parliament that starting next week, they will be required to present Covid-19 vaccination cards to attend sittings.
According to the World Health Organisation, reports from the United Nations Children International Fund indicate a 2.2 billion shortfall of syringes for different volumes. One of the affected volumes is the 0.3 ml auto-disposable syringes that are needed for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination.
To date, 120 health workers have succumbed to the COVID-19 since March 2020. The majority of the doctors died during the second wave between May and June.
The directive takes immediate effect for staff, and start on October 18 for all other visitors. This implies that all NMS staff, who are over 350 in number, and visitors, who are usually bidders and suppliers of drugs and other pharmaceutical products must present proof of vaccination to be admitted at the NMS head offices in Entebbe.
