KAMPALA, Uganda \u2014\u00a0Siraje Bukenya, a councilor in Uganda\u2019s capital, Kampala, was among the first to receive the opening jab of the Covid-19 vaccine when the government started mass vaccination on March 10, 2021.<\/p>\n
However, he now fears going for the second dose after investigations revealed that at least 800 people in the country got injected with fake Covid-19 vaccines.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf our government doesn\u2019t tackle this issue firmly, people will fear getting vaccinated. How can health workers inject people with fake vaccines? We, leaders, ought to fight this menace.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Fraudsters targeted people desperately looking for vaccines when the country ran short of them during a period when the number of new infections reached an all-time high of roughly 1,700 per day, said\u00a0Warren Naamara<\/a>, the director of the Health Monitoring Unit.<\/p>\n \u201cThe police arrested two nurses, and another one is on the run,\u201d he told Zenger News.<\/p>\n Two nurses from Nakawa, Kampala, were detained by State House investigators on June 30, 2021, and remanded to Kitalya Prison.<\/p>\n He said tests showed the fake vials contained no harmful substances.<\/p>\n Stephen Kisuze,\u00a0<\/strong>the chief Information, Communication & Technology officer\u00a0<\/strong>at the\u00a0National Medical Stores<\/a>, said the arrested nurses did not get the materials used to make the fake vials from government stores.<\/p>\n \u201cFurther, the medications lacked government labeling, as required by law,\u201d he said. The National Medical Stores is a government institution tasked with obtaining, storing, and distributing pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n Uganda is gripped by the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni to reimpose a countrywide lockdown on June 18, 2021.<\/p>\n The country received 864,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in\u00a0March 2021<\/a>\u00a0via the\u00a0Covax facility<\/a>\u00a0and another 175 200 doses in\u00a0June 2021<\/a>. The government has vaccinated 1,135,036, according to the\u00a0Ministry of Health.<\/a><\/p>\n Uganda\u2019s first phase of the Covid-19 vaccination targeted only people at risk like health workers, the elderly, politicians, people with disabilities, and teachers. It did not include children and the public.<\/p>\n Government hospitals are full of Covid-19 patients, but ordinary Ugandans worry that private hospitals will take advantage of them, as with the fake vaccines.<\/p>\n Solome Muhereza Busingye, a seasoned health practitioner, advised Ugandans to shun private hospitals that charge for the vaccinations.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople should not pay for the Covid-19 vaccines,\u201d she told Zenger News.<\/p>\n \u201cThe vaccines purchased for a fee are fake. Crooks are enticing our nurses into administering fake vaccines. Ugandans should wait till the government does mass vaccination. Nurses should also follow work ethics and avoid fake scams.\u201d<\/p>\n Jesus Mere, also a health practitioner who took the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, advised the government to bar private hospitals from vaccinating people.<\/p>\n \u201cIn light of the negative reports we receive on how private hospitals have handled Covid-19, government health institutions should be the only ones doing public vaccinations,\u201d he told Zenger News.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government should also organize outreaches and inform people the importance of getting vaccinated to restore public trust in the Covid-19 inoculation exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n Warren Kizza Besigye Kifefe, Museveni\u2019s former personal doctor and four-time presidential challenger, said the country conducted the Covid-19 exercise wrongly.<\/p>\n \u201cThose in leadership are doing very little to fight Covid-19 because they don\u2019t have that capacity to do so and are not even prepared to fight this pandemic,\u201d he told Zenger News.<\/p>\n \u201cWe needed a mass vaccination in this regard, but as you know, expect nothing much with the corruption in this country. Through local media platforms, I have taught our people how to use remedies to boost their immunities. Unfortunately, due to the weaknesses described, the second wave arrived when government readiness was not substantially different from March 2020, and the population had grown far more vulnerable.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Jimmy Odoki Acellam, a program coordinator at\u00a0Heartsounds Uganda<\/a>, a mental health non-governmental organization, some Ugandans believe the victims of the fake Covid-19 jab could be higher.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will discourage some Ugandans from going for vaccination, but I will monitor media reports on the distribution of the next batch of vaccines,\u201d he told Zenger News.<\/p>\n When Covid-19 broke out in March 2020, Museveni appealed for national solidarity to support the healthcare system, which was already in crisis due to funding constraints.<\/p>\n Hundreds of businesses and individuals responded by donating millions of shillings and automobiles to the hastily established National Response Fund to Covid\u201319 in the\u00a0Office of the Prime Minister<\/a>.<\/p>\n The government\u2019s administration of Covid-19 resources, on the other hand, has been cloaked in secrecy, raising doubts about accountability and transparency.<\/p>\n The government borrowed $888 million\u2014approximately Sh3.3 trillion, or seven percent of 2020\/2021 national budget\u2014to boost economic recovery and respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to an\u00a0audit report.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Millions of shillings were wasted or stolen, according to the\u00a0Budget Monitoring and Accountability Unit\u00a0<\/a>of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what happens when corruption reaches high offices, and the mafia starts controlling the Finance Ministry,\u201d Livingstone Sewanyana, e<\/strong>xecutive director of the\u00a0Foundation for Human Rights Initiative<\/a>, told Zenger News.<\/p>\n \u201cA study conducted in November 2020 by the government\u2019s own\u00a0Uganda Bureau of Statistics<\/a>\u00a0found that 74 percent of Ugandans believed that the Covid-19 funds would not reach them because the powerful mafia would steal them. Ugandans should be worried and demand accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n