Uganda faces shortages of polio vaccine

From The New Vision in Uganda:

Shortages and late delivery of vaccines marred the three-day national polio and measles campaign countrywide as the turn-out was higher than expected.

This left many parents and children stranded at the immunisation centres.

In Kampala district, a number of immunisation centres, such as Ntinda, reported they had run out of stocks, especially of measles vaccines.

Officials at Kiswa health centre in Bugolobi, which was the distribution centre for the area, confirmed the shortage in Ntinda, which had been restocked by yesterday morning.

At Kiyumba immunisation centre in Makindye Division, the vaccines had run out by Sunday noon. The parents and guardians waited in vain for their children to be immunised.

When The New Vision visited the centre yesterday afternoon it was closed.

In some areas of Lira district, children who turned up on Sunday also went home without being served because the stocks were depleted.

Health officials in Aromo and Amugo sub-counties have extended the exercise, which was supposed to end yesterday, up to today.

“The fridges had technical problems, which forced the distributors to return the vaccines to the main store in Lira. The distribution for the two sub-counties is now done from Lira,” said Dr. Peter Kusolo, the Lira district health officer, adding that technicians were repairing the fridges.

Dr. Possy Mugyenyi, the head of the immunisation programme, attributed the shortage of vaccines to the overwhelming numbers.

“In Kampala, we advised the health workers in areas which had shortages to pick some from those which had excess vaccines,” he said.

Trucks were sent out at night to replenish districts that had reported stock-outs, he added.

The health ministry had planned to immunise children between 0 and five years (for polio) and between nine months and four years (for measles).

It aimed at immunising 4.7 million children against measles and 6.2 million against polio. But some parents turned up with children beyond the age brackets. This interfered with the ministry’s arrangements.

The exact number of children who were immunised will be out later this week.

Meanwhile, in Mubende district, officials rushed to Bukuya sub-county on Sunday, following reports that a group of people was moving from house to house, telling residents not to take their children for immunisation arguing that it would harm them.

“We found out that these were the local leaders. Instead of arresting them, we ordered them to mobilise the people to take their children and they obliged,” said Stephen Nsubuga Bewaayo, the resident district commissioner.

He said the highest number of culprits was in Makokoto parish, bordering Mubende and Mityana districts.

“In this parish, the most affected villages were Kanoga, Kuzimu and Kyabakadde. The parents were stubbornly resisting, having heard from critics that the vaccines would harm their children,” Bewaayo said.