Mak don cautions about loopholes in COVID-19 vaccination

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The government could face challenges establishing the rightful recipients of the much-needed jab against the COVID-19 virus if extra caution is not taken to close loopholes.

Uganda is expecting more than 20 million doses of vaccines at the end of this month according to a tentative programme from the Ministry of Health. Uganda has tentatively been allocated 3,552,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine which is among those found to be effective in preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death from COVID-19. Another 18 million doses are expected from the Serum Institute of India.

The initial recipients of the vaccine include teachers, health workers, security operatives, vulnerable groups and people with underlying conditions. According to the Ministry of Health tentative plan, they want a total of 110,000 health workers from both the public and the private sector to have been vaccinated by the end of June.

Also planned are 200,000 security operatives, 100,000 teachers and 60,000 essential workers who are not yet properly defined, in addition, 3.3 million persons older than 50 years and 400,000 who are below 50 but live with predisposing health conditions like diabetes, cancer, heart disease that puts them at risk of suffering from critical disease or even dying of COVID-19.

Dr Freddie Sengooba, a public health policy expert-based at Makerere University worries that the process might be met with deep-rooted corruption hurdles and end in the hands of a few.

Ssengooba also wonders how vaccines will be distributed yet the target audience has not yet been properly identified.

He says when it comes to health workers and teachers, there are those that work in public facilities and have a unique identifier but the same people moonlight in private facilities which leaves a loophole that can be taken advantage of.

However, Dr Alfred Driwale who heads the Immunization programme in the Ministry of Health said such issues are still being discussed and they are yet to gain consensus especially on targeting. But he noted all the vaccine recipients will be registered before the actual roll out is embarked on.

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