Govt targets children aged 5 for Covid jabs
A doctor administers a Covid-19 vaccine at the Ministry of Health headquarters in Kampala last year. PHOTO / ABUBAKER LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- Mr Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the Ministry of Health spokesperson, while justifying the ministry’s request for Shs652 billion to fund the Covid-19 resurgence plan, said the ministry will go ahead to vaccinate those aged 5 to 7 years.
The Ministry of Health has added children aged 5 to 11 years among the youngsters being targeted for Covid-19 vaccination.
However, many parents are against the drive because of the limited impact of the virus on children.
Children are the least affected by Covid-19, with a specific study in Mulago National Referral Hospital among 477 Covid-19 patients putting the hospitalisation rate among children under at two percent and the deaths rate at 1 percent. (The study was done by a team of eight experts led by Dr Felix Bongomin).
Dr Daniel Kyabayinze, the director of public health services at the Ministry of Health, told this newspaper that they want to vaccinate children to cut the transmission of the virus, which has so far killed 3,596 of the 164,069 it has cumulatively infected.
“Remember children were not vaccinated, children fell sick [and when schools were closed in 2021 due to Covid-19 spike], they took the diseases to the parents who died. We closed schools because we were fearing that children would fall sick and die. Do we want to go backwards? Who said children don’t transmit diseases?” he asked.
Mr Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the Ministry of Health spokesperson, while justifying the ministry’s request for Shs652 billion to fund the Covid-19 resurgence plan, said the ministry will go ahead to vaccinate those aged 5 to 7 years.
“Ministry of Health needs the funds to procure vaccines for children aged 12 to 17, and five to 11. Specifically, the vaccines approved for children (Pfizer). What we have [is] 2.4m doses, not 24m, [which] is too little for this age group estimated at 12m…” he tweeted last Thursday.
Pfizer vaccine is a double-dose vaccine and each dose is sold at $19.5 (Shs68,800), according to a market survey.
The ministry is asking for Shs652b to, among others, buy Covid-19 vaccines when it has failed to administer more than 24 million donated doses already in the country.
The accountability for Shs560b for procuring vaccines in 2021/2022 Financial Year has not been provided. Except for Shs128b, the relevant government officials have consistently declined to give full accountability for the Shs560b allocated for procuring vaccines.
Health officials and legislators have blamed the low uptake of vaccines on anti-vaxxer culture and Covid-19 deniers, poor grassroot mobilisation and demand by some political leaders for cash as a pre-condition to rally the population for inoculation.
More vaccines dilemma
Dr Timothy Lusala, the shadow minister for Health, in his alternative ministerial policy statement dated March 2022, said the country already has enough vaccines and there is no need of the taxpayers’ money to be spent on more vaccines.
Questioning the new request of Shs652b, Dr Lusala said Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, the Health minister, in her policy statement for the Health sector is silent on more important issues.
According to him, going by the World Health Organisation guidelines, all the available vaccines should be for those 18 years or older, with priority to the elderly and those with comorbidities.
“We note that the country has already procured and, or received in donations, sufficient Covid-19 vaccines to administer to the categories of people indicated by the WHO guidelines. We, therefore, propose that the colossal sums of money being requested for the mass vaccination campaign be invested in the establishment of a minimum care and monitoring package that will ensure early and timely detection of any Covid-19 cases at the community level, including schools,” Dr Lusala noted.
The alternative proposals from the shadow minister include amplifying the role of community-based healthcare through the empowerment of health extension workers, village health teams and the role out of integrated community case management.
