The government then had placed its hopes on donations of Pfizer vaccine from the United States of America. The idea which was first communicated by President, Yoweri Kaguta during one of his addresses on the COVID-19 pandemic became one of the conditions for the re-opening of schools.
According to health ministry officials, over two million children have never received a polio vaccine while around 4.7 million are protected against Polio Type 1 and 3 but not type 2 which is believed to be circulating in the country.
According to health ministry officials, the available vaccines will be used to fully vaccinate 150,000 people who are in organized groups. Groups that are being targeting for to get the vaccine include; soldiers, persons working in organizations or those belonging to associations of persons with co-morbidities
According to analytical results from the Government Analytical Laboratory and the National Drug Auhtority, the water that was put in the vials and passed off was AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines had few impurities and the water was most likely was bottled
The programme manager of Uganda Nation Expanded Programme on Immunization,Dr Alfred Driwale says only people who received their first jab 12 weeks ago will get the vaccine
The consignment is part of a 3.5 million vaccine donation from the COVAX facility. Initially, the country was expecting to get 2.3 million vaccines in May following 964,000 vaccine sent in March but due to the exportation ban on vaccines from India, the country will receive less than what was expected.
Uganda received 964,000 vaccine doses which were sent to different local governments. According to the health ministry, KCCA was one of the local government authorities that received the highest number of vaccines. It is estimated that over 200,000 doses were given to the authority. Now the health ministry wants it to account for 21,000 vaccines
According to the data from the Uganda National Expanded Programme on Immunization (UNEPI), they are considering picking 91,000 vaccine doses from 36 districts across the country.
Only 24,093 health workers have received the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine out of the targeted 150,000. According to the health ministry, the low uptake of the vaccine among health workers is likely to make communities more suspicious of the vaccination campaign.
Figures from the health ministry show that 1.2 children aged 10-11 years missed cervical cancer vaccination while 500,000 children also missed routine vaccination.
Data from the health ministry shows that while uptake of the first dose has always stood at over 75 per cent, uptake of the second dose has been as low as 22 per cent in some parts of the country. It is based on these figures that the Health Ministry launched a campaign to encourage uptake of the second dose.
During the trial, a fifth of the yellow fever dosage 0.1 millilitres will be given to participants. The global recommended dose of yellow fever vaccination is 0.5 millilitres.
Dr. Alfred Driwale, the program manager Uganda National Expanded Program on Immunization, attributes the shortage to increased demand for vaccine globally.
