Routine immunisation: Masaka City schools block health teams from accessing pupils
The main entrance of Hill Road Public School located in Masaka City, one of the few where immunisation against vaccine preventable diseases went on smoothly. PHOTO | AL MAHDI SSENKABIRWA
A host of schools in Masaka City have blocked health workers from accessing their premises to vaccinate pupils against vaccine-preventable diseases, claiming they were not aware of the exercise.
At the beginning of third term in September, the Ministry of Health rolled out a campaign of immunising learners against diseases like tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, hepatitis B, pneumonia, measles and rotavirus.
However, health teams have have been locked out of the school premises, which led to the intervention of the deputy resident city commissioner’s office.
According to Mr Ahmed Kateregga Musaazi, the deputy RCC in charge of Kimaanya /Kabonera Municipality, the health teams have so far faced resistance in 14 primary schools.
“The school heads claim that though the Ministry [of Health] rolled out the immunisation exercise before sensitising them,” he said.
Ms Teddy Sseremba, the head teacher of Linlord Kindergarten and Primary School, said they are not decampaigning the immunisation exercise, but rather lacked information about the programme.
“Let the Ministry of Health conduct more sensitisation campaigns if the programme [immunisation] is to succeed,” she said.
“Parents have been coming here insisting that their children shouldn't be immunised, some claim they already immunised their children and there is no need of getting another jab,” she added.
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr Kateregga said the government has taken note of concerns by school proprietors, adding that they have also decided to conduct more sensitisation through local radio stations.
“Some of the school heads I have interacted with confuse this exercise with the Covid -19 vaccination, this is the normal routine vaccination of the killer diseases which we all went through. I want to allay parents’ fears and we ask schools to cooperate with the health teams and allow them access their premises,” he added.
The programme which was supposed to end last week, has been extended up to October 31, to enable pupils that had not been immunised get their jabs, according to Mr Kateregga.
To follow up on the learners that had not completed their doses, the Ministry of Health in partnership with the Ministry of Education introduced the immunisation registers in schools with the aim of improving completion of doses rates.
Available records show that in 2018 over 115 percent of children between 9 to 13 years had completed their first dose of vaccine against Human Papillomavirus (HPV), but surprisingly only 47 percent got their second dose which prompted the ministry to push for the introduction of the immunisation registers to address such gaps.
