Ugandans take Covid jabs for fear of restrictions - report
Vials of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a Covid-19 vaccination center in Paris, amid the campaign of vaccination against the coronavirus on May 8, 2021.PHOTO/ AFP
What you need to know:
- About 74 percent of the 22 million Ugandans above 18 years have received at least one dose and 51 percent of the people in that category are fully vaccinated.
Many people in the country have embraced the Covid-19 vaccination exercise for fear of being barred from accessing some essential services or face travel restrictions if they don’t have a vaccination card, a new study indicates.
Researchers at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) of Makerere University conducted the study between January and April. It was led by Dr Richard Muhindo.
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The report also indicates that confidence in the effectiveness of the vaccine in stopping Covid-19 and fear of severe disease were the key determinants of vaccine acceptance.
Dr Muhindo said in an interview last Friday that the study was done among persons living with HIV (PLHIV), health workers, and community leaders in Kampala Metropolitan area.
Out of the 767 PLHIV who participated in the study, 534 had received at least one dose while the rest were unvaccinated.
“The drivers of non-willingness to vaccinate were fear of Covid-19 vaccine side effects, the misconception that vaccinating when somebody is HIV positive or on Anti-retroviral Therapy (ART) weakens someone’s body and also causes death. Some of them doubt the effectiveness of the vaccine,” Dr Muhindo said.
People living with HIV are at increased risk of developing severe Covid-19 and dying from the disease because of reduced immunity, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The WHO report, which was based on clinical surveillance data from 37 countries regarding the risk of poor Covid-19 outcomes in PLHIV admitted to hospital for Covid-19, indicates that “nearly a quarter (23.1 percent) of all PLHIV who were hospitalised with Covid-19, died.”
Uganda has around 1.4m PLHIV and of this, around 22,000 Aids-related deaths are recorded in the country annually.
While commenting on the report, Dr Andrew Kambugu, the IDI director, said the evidence that about a quarter of the PLHIV do not have a positive view of the vaccine means the government should increase efforts toward vaccination.
Sensitisation
“We need to educate, we need to get the insights. One of the participants thought that if they have diabetes and hypertension, then they are too weak to get a vaccine. It is not correct information because if you have these conditions and you get Covid, you are the person who will likely end up at the intensive care unit, so such a person needs the vaccine the more,” Dr Kambugu said.
According to the report, more people in communities trusted Covid-19 vaccine information communicated by health workers (90 percent) than those from the Ministry of Health and other government officials (77 percent).
“The participants trusted more the healthcare workers. That is where we need to focus on by giving them [health workers] accurate information so that they can build the confidence of people in communities about the vaccine,” Dr Muhindo said.
Ms Beatrice Amuge, a public health specialist and the Commissioner of Health Services in charge of Nursing and Midwifery at the Ministry of Health, urged the public to accept the vaccines, saying they are safe and effective.
“This study is very important to the Ministry of Health. Covid-19 came and it was scary. We had limited vaccines so those with comorbidities such as HIV/Aids, diabetes, hypertension were prioritised. Acceptability for this vaccine has been a problem for long since we received them in the country, and even up to now,” she said.
Ms Amuge asked health workers to be exemplary by taking up the vaccines, adding that the ministry will use the recommendations from the researchers to inform vaccination strategy.
Ugandans vaccinated so far
Statistics from the ministry indicate that 74 percent of the 22 million Ugandans above 18 years have received at least one dose and 51 percent of the people in that category are fully vaccinated.
This means the government is yet to fully vaccinate 49 percent of the targeted population who are having partial protection and also to reach the 26 percent of the same population who are unvaccinated so as to effectively contain the pandemic.
The country is struggling to exhaust around 47m doses acquired largely through donations and some through direct procurement. Around 21m doses of vaccines have been administered since the exercise started last year.
