The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | More children were vaccinated in the concluded Measles-Rubella mass immunization campaign.
While the ministry had planned to vaccinate 18 million children,the number surpassed to 20 million.
The mismatch between the planned and actual number of children vaccinated has led to a disagreement between the ministry of health and Uganda Bureau of Statistics.
The health ministry says it was misled by UBOS figures leading to under budgeting that resulted in vaccine stock-outs experienced during the campaign.
Dr Alfred Driwale, the Uganda National Expanded Programme on Immunization programme manager says they found more children on the ground than what they had planned for.
“When we were preparing for this exercise, we used data from the Uganda Demographic Health Survey, Household survey and population growth projections issued by UBOS. However in so many places that we went, we found that the picture presented by UBOS did not match with what was on the ground,” Dr Driwale explains.
According to Dr Driwale, the high numbers of children disorganized their preparation. He says they had to revert to over 300,000 doses of the vaccine that were planned for next year.
He however quickly adds that the ministry has the finances to procure more vaccines since the measles-rubella vaccine has been included in the routine immunizable disease.
“We have enough money to procure more vaccines next year even after using what was stored. People should not be scared that their children will not be immunized next year,” Dr Driwale said.
He adds that they also discovered some areas like Wakiso had more than 4,000 schools yet data that was used to plan for the exercise only indicated 1,000 schools.
However, Pamela Kakande, a senior health statistician at the Uganda Bureau of Statistics says that the figures that they provided to the health ministry correlate with the numbers vaccinated.
Due to the mismatch in figures, some children that were immunised in Wakiso did not get immunization cards.
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I can understand the range in accuracy associated with statistical data but the difference between 4000 and 1000 schools is simply unnerving. If MoE is using the same statistics, there are 3000 schools that are not on the payroll or some of them. HOW robust are our statistics?
BUT KUDOS for the 20 million performance that was fantastic