The consignment which is part of a deliberate out reach by the Ministry through its global partners since May 2022 is said to be targeting over 20 susceptible districts especially those bordering Uganda in the West.
Dr. Henry Mwebesa, the Director General of health services, on the other hand explained how this initiative was not in anyway connected to any Ebola cases since Uganda has registered none at the moment, however being part of the reactive preventive vaccination in mainly districts at the western border of Uganda
“Those at a highest risk are health workers and front line workers, these will be the primary targets of this vaccination in the 20 districts we shall reveal later,” he highlighted. Adding that a detailed program about the preventative immunization exercise will be out soon.
Dr. Mwebesa referred to the handing over of the consignment as sharpening of their tools in preparedness to make sure that they weren’t overwhelmed at a time when they may not be able to stop a spillover of the virus from the wild and thus mitigate the effects.
In September 2022, Uganda confirmed her recent Ebola outbreak in Mubende district after tests run by the Uganda Virus Research Institute on a suspected case patient and released on September 19 confirmed an Ebola (Sudan strain) infection.
A total of 25,000 doses were donated by American multinational pharmaceutical corporation Johnson & Johnson.
As implementing partners, Dr. Kambugu Andrew, Executive Director Infectious Disease Institute Makerere University also noted that the country should be confident that the product will be applied to the right personnel and population.
He added that they were fully experienced to handle such a program and that the experience over the years will be drawn to add value to the procedure.
Paul Okware from National Medical Stores (NMS) also reassured the population of the safety of the vaccines and that they shouldn’t have worries of causing advance effects since they will be kept properly
“We are very confident that the vaccine is safe and NMS will properly store it, we will make sure that once we start getting orders for these vaccines across the country we shall have the capacity expertise to deliver it as quickly as possible while maintaining its cold chain,” he noted.
With all the global trends in health, vaccines remain very key weapons for protection amongst people especially that they aren’t easy to produce.The Ebola vaccine is administered in 2 doses which are separated by an 8 weeks altimatum.
