The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Director of Makerere University Hospital, Prof. Josephat Byamugisha has said they are not struggling with the uptake of the Covid-19 vaccination.
The Covid-19 vaccination point based at Makerere University hospital had depleted all its stocks in slightly more than a week as most of other centers were struggling with uptake.
In fact, according to the Ministry of Health, the vaccination exercise had generally slowed until weeks later when President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and the first lady, got immunized that they saw numbers pick up.
Prof. Byamugisha told URN that theirs were different as they never ever struggled with uptake. They received 3,131 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine for the Makerere University community, and on average they would vaccinate 440 people each day.
The highest single day vaccination had 686 people and they never registered any wastage as they could only open a vial once they had groups of ten people coming through, Prof. Byamugisha explains.
When URN visited the Makerere University hospital vaccination center, the vaccination teams were only entering comprehensive data about the people vaccinated before they could open up for a new target audience.
Byamugisha says with the new stocks expected from the Kampala Capital City Authority-KCCA, they will be targeting communities neighboring the university.
The expected doses he says will be available for all the people in all targeted categories following loosening of guidelines by the Ministry of Health accepting all categories of people to access the jabs.
Having got 864,000 doses of the jab from the COVAX facility and 100,000 other doses from the government of India in early March, the Ministry had targeted to first reach out to the 15,000 health workers targeted before they could slowly open up to the rest of the priority population including teachers, security operatives, people of advanced age and those living with other predisposing health conditions.
This quickly changed according to Dr. Alfred Driwale, the Manager of the Uganda National Expanded Programme on Immunisation (UNEPI). He says they resolved to open up for all the groups that could access vaccines because they wanted to reach as many people as possible.
As of Thursday, a total number of 206,708 people had been vaccinated and Driwale says they want to reach as many people as they can with the first dose. He says it’s better for public health to have a lot of people vaccinated with one dose of the drug than having only a few that are targeted but not very forthcoming.
However, if the Ministry of Health figure of those vaccinated so far is to go by, it would mean Uganda is remaining with stocks of 766,000 doses. But by Driwale’s explanation, this is not the true picture on the ground.
He told URN in an earlier interview that some vaccination points are not regularly reporting as per the guidelines.
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