Govt developing new application for Covid-19 vaccination cards

The Ministry of Health is developing an application to verify Covid-19 vaccination cards.
The ministry spokesperson, Mr Emma Ainebyoona, told the Daily Monitor yesterday that the move is aimed at minimising the use of unauthentic vaccination cards.

“We are working out some application where we shall use a USSD code to verify vaccination cards. Once the system is developed, we will be able to generate information of each vaccination card. The process is still ongoing and once it is ready, we shall communicate accordingly,” Mr Ainebyoona said.

He said vaccination cards have serial numbers that can be used to differentiate the genuine and fake ones.

Currently, the details of whoever is vaccinated are entered into the Ministry of Health’s database.

The government requires all people above 18 years to be vaccinated against Covid-19.

President Museveni last week tasked the transport operators to only transport passengers who are fully vaccinated.
Some officials from the Ministry of Education have also threatened to arrest school directors who will allow teachers and other school staff to resume work without being vaccinated.

The mandatory Covid vaccination has seen some Ugandans forge vaccination cards.
More than 200 teachers in Lira City, for example, allegedly faked Covid-19 vaccination to access schools once they start operating this month.

Some health workers in different parts of the country have also been accused of issuing genuine cards to people who are not vaccinated.

Dr Alfred Driwale, the programme manager of Uganda National Expanded Programme on Immunisation, said forgery is a crime that will impact negatively on communities. 

He said the culprits will be arrested and prosecuted. 

“Forgery is a police case. Health Monitoring Unit will investigate and prosecute the culprits,” Dr Driwale said.
He urged the public to embrace vaccination to stay safe.

The police spokesperson, Mr Fred Enanga, said once the ministries of health and that of transport finalise with the guidelines in regards to Covid-19 vaccination, the force will  implement them. “We shall come up with a modality of verifying the cards, we shall work with them to implement the presidential directive. We shall do random check-ups to establish the details of vaccinations cards,” he said.