Ugandan government officials are pushing for compulsory COVID-19 vaccination of the frontline workers to protect them from coronavirus-related death and quicken attainment of the goal of returning society to normalcy.
This comes at a time when the country is struggling with vaccine hesitancy, a situation being worsened by increasing cases of adverse reactions such as blood clothing and deaths in recipients of the jabs in several countries.
The April 13 statistics from the Ministry of Health indicates that of the 90,142 health workers who have so far been registered to take the jabs, only 20,405 (23%) have been vaccinated. The country has an estimated total of 150,000 health workers, according to the ministry.
Both the District Health Officer of Arua, Dr Paul Bishop Drileba, and the Resident District Commissioner of Amuru, Mr Geoffrey Orsbon Oceng, say government should consider shifting from voluntary to mandatory COVID-19 to increase uptake and promote public health.
Dr Drileba told Daily Monitor that since the vaccine is not killing people here as it the case in foreign countries, government should customise the policy and make the vaccination of frontline workers and civil servants mandatory.
"As public experts, we believe that the notions that vaccination should be voluntary is not because if you are a health worker, you are handling other people," Mr Drileba said.
He added: "And if the teacher contracts COVID-19 and dies, learning will be affected and this will inversely affect parents who are paying school fees. Government should forcefully push people to make everyone in public service be vaccinated."
Last week, Mr Oceng last week sent a directive, asking all the health workers in the district to take the COVID-19 jabs.