We should rethink  vaccination drive 

A Ugandan army health official vaccinates a man with the Pfizer vaccine during the mass vaccination exercise at City Square in Kampala on October 14, 2021.PHOTOS/ISAAC KASAMANI

What you need to know:

  • A day before Mr Museveni unveiled the new target, the Ministry of Health had released figures that indicated that 3.3 million doses out of 5.7 million doses of vaccines that government has received through donations and direct procurement remain unutilised.

On Thursday, President Museveni announced that the country and education institutions will only be opened up after seven million Ugandans have been vaccinated against Covid-19. The new target is 2.2 million more than the 4.8 million that he had initially set as the minimum target.

A day before Mr Museveni unveiled the new target, the Ministry of Health had released figures that indicated that 3.3 million doses out of 5.7 million doses of vaccines that government has received through donations and direct procurement remain unutilised.

Only 2.4 million Ugandans have taken the jab seven months after the government rolled out the nationwide vaccination drive. Most of them have taken a single jab. That comes down to an average of 342,857 Ugandans that take the jab every month.

About 4.6 million more Ugandans have to be vaccinated before the country opens up. Now given an average monthly vaccine uptake of 342,857 people, the country will need another 13 months before the economy and the country open up. We cannot afford that.

The ministry has been blaming the low vaccine uptake on both the limited vaccination outlets across the country; limited numbers of health workers to vaccinate the populace and; the decision by categories such as teachers, nonteaching staff, health workers, security personnel and citizens above the age of 50 to shun the jabs.

One wonders whether the issue of limited vaccination outlets and limited number of health workers should even be coming up seven months after the national vaccination drive was rolled out. Should the Ministry of Health not be opening up more vaccination centres and recruiting nurses on short-term contracts to work in those vaccination centres?

There must, however, be a much bigger problem than meets the eye if people who should ordinarily know that not taking a jab leaves them exposed chose to ignore all the government’s attempts to convince them to take the jab. It suggests that the messaging around the campaign has failed. It calls for an evaluation and rethink of the vaccination campaign and strategy.

Uganda’s early success in the fight against the HIV epidemic was partially attributed to messages that emphasised “zero grazing” or reduction of sexual partners as a way of reducing the risks of infection. The communication strategy then shifted to the promotion of abstinence, condom use, voluntary HIV-counselling and testing and later treatment programmes. A look at how the fight and messaging around the HIV might be instructive in shaping how best to get Ugandans out there to go for that jab.