When Jackie Nalule was pregnant with her first child, she did not get the two required tetanus toxoid vaccines.
“I did not get those shots,” she says with a big, sunny attitude and then flippantly remarks: “I wonder why women suffer getting them. There are simply way too many requirements for pregnant women to fulfill. I had to miss some of them and my baby is fine.”
But now pregnant for a second time, Nalule’s mother is piling pressure that she attends some antenatal visits. But still, Nalule won’t get the tetanus toxoid vaccines: “Shouldn’t only the ill visit hospitals? I will only come back here if I am sick.”
Dr Annette Kisakye of the World Health Organisation (WHO) says only 54% of pregnant women in Uganda get the required tetanus toxoid vaccines.
“That figure is still very low,” she says. This is especially so among women of child-bearing age whose vaccination rate stands at 12%.
And it’s not only the women that disregard the vaccinations. One of the challenges the ministry of Health officials say they face is “high dropout rate in some districts”.
And according to Dr Kisakye, after getting the third dose of DPT (the vaccine for diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus), parents stop taking their children for immunisation. A child should get his/her final tetanus vaccination one year after getting the third tetanus vaccination.
Ignoring immunisation not only puts children at risk but increases on public and personal spending should one suffer from an immunisable disease. The pentavalent vaccine (which contains DPT and antigens against hepatitis B) costs $10 (approximately Shs 29,000) yet if a person skipped it and suffered from hepatitis B, they would require $200 to $240 (approximately Shs 580,000 to Shs 696,000) for treatment.
World Health Organisation (WHO) country representative Dr Joaquim Saweka says it is mainly through immunisation that countries can achieve MDG4 (reduction in child mortality) and MDG 5 (reduction in maternal mortality).
“If you do not immunise, you increase on the number of mourning households,” he said. In response, Saweka is encouraging government to institute measures that would enable immunisation programmes. “Countries should move towards self-reliance. Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo set up trust funds for immunisation,” Saweka says.
Between October 22 and 24, children from Busia, Bugiri, Iganga, Mayuge, Namayingo, Jinja and Buikwe were immunised against polio following fears that the virus could spill over from Kenya. They will be immunised again between November 19 and 21. On the same days, children from 22 districts in Western Uganda will be immunised; there are threats from DRC.
Children from these 22 districts will get their second dosage between December 11 and 13. Uganda’s children are currently immunised against eight diseases (not six as it was some time back).
They are tuberculosis, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, meningitis, hepatitis B and they are given the haemophilus influenza B vaccine for protection against pneumonia or meningitis. There are also plans to immunise children against the human papilloma virus (responsible for cervical cancer), diarrhea and pneumonia.