The government’s plan, through the Ministry of Health to start vaccinating all children aged 12-17 years against Covid-19, has met a widespread criticism from skeptics.
Using social networks like WhatsaApp, the skeptics have shared messages indicating that the vaccines are dangerous and that the health hazard that vaccinating children poses, outweighs the benefit, but their claims haven’t been backed up by official data.
These claims have been challenged by the Director of Public health, Dr Daniel Kyabayinze, who said that the vaccines are absolutely safe and that many countries are using them to inoculate their children.
Expected to start around May or August, the primary aim of the vaccination program is to cut transmission and infections as opposed to fighting severe illness among the youngsters. The Health Minister, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, is expected to issue a statement about the matter today.
The information against vaccination aims at stirring up parents to challenge the decision of vaccinating teenagers.
“Speak up against this [vaccination of children]. The authority of your child remains with you the parent and not the government. Safeguard your children against this move. Share this message with fellow parents to warn them of what lies ahead,” the information reads.
Former presidential candidate Joseph Kabuleta, argued that it is a bad idea to inject children with “Covid vaccines which are under a lot of scrutinies” globally.
“….It is a crime against humanity, that is the reality. There are increasing cases of heart attacks among recipients,” he said. He said his claims are based on data from foreign countries which this reporter could not independently verify.
Mr Kabuleta also said health officials are under pressure to utilize the vaccines which are almost expiring.
“They don’t mind what the side effects will be to the recipients,” he said.
However, Dr Kyabayinze said the negative claims are as a result of ignorance.
“Countries have vaccinated children, if that is deniable, let those people [skeptics] say we are the first country to start vaccinating children. Ugandans used to say that “vaccines will kill us” but now we have vaccinated 18 million people, are we seeing 18 million dead bodies. Time has given us chance for people to believe that what we say is credible and proved us to be right,” he said.
Countries such as the United Kingdom and the United State of America have been vaccinating children.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, through their official site, indicates that as of March 25, at least 34 percent of children aged 5-11 years in the country had received their first shot of vaccine while 68 percent of those between 12 and17 years had also received their first dose by March 15.
Prof David Serwadda, the head of the government vaccine advisory committee, in an interview said the vaccines are safe, clarifying that they prioritised adults in the initial campaign because vaccines were scarce.
“We are actually going to start vaccinating that age group [12-17 years] around the middle of this year because the campaign has been mainly in the adults 18 years and above. The first target was to get the older population vaccinated and like many other countries, then we work upwards to children,” he said.
The expert also admitted that children don’t have severe effects of Covid-19. “But they are equally infected and probably the transmission rate of Covid-19 among them is very high. So the aim here is not so much to protect the kids from severe disease but it is to reduce infection and transmission to the older population,” he said.
It should be noted that the ministry has utilized less than half (18.4 million) doses of 42 million doses of vaccines it acquired through direct procurement and donations. A substantial number of vaccines is said to be expiring by May, according to information from the ministry.