Victoria University threatens to sack all staff members who miss Covid-19 jab

Victoria University management has announced that staff members who miss out on the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination at the premises risk losing their jobs.

The University had previously conducted the vaccination exercise on 28th April and 5th May 2021 but some staff members missed out on the jab.

Now, the University’s Human Resource Manager has written to all staff members informing them of a new compulsory vaccination exercise that kicked off yesterday and ending on 4th June 2021.

“This is to inform all staff who missed Covid-19 vaccination on 28th April, 2021 and 5th May, 2021 to pass by the sickbay, the KCCA Health workers are available today, 28th May, 2021 to 4th June, 2021 from 8:00am to 5:00pm”- reads in part the notice by Victoria’s Human Resource Manager.

The university has warned they will suspend staff members who fail to comply.

“Whoever, misses the jab, kindly don’t come back to work until Covid-19 is out of Uganda. Management will not risk the lives of the stakeholders”- HR Manager noted.

It’s worth noting that taking the jab has been voluntary across the country . Despite this, some work places have decided to force their staff to take the vaccines as some members have declined taking the jabs.

In a similar manner, the chairperson of the Ministry of Education Covid-19 response task team, Mulindwa Ismail, last month threatened to de-register all teachers who had refused to get the Covid-19 jab saying they couldn’t continue putting lives of learners at risk with teachers who had not been vaccinated.

Victoria’s decision comes at a time as Coronavirus cases in the country surge with new deadly variants having also been detected in the country.

Despite several calls by the Ministry of Health urging Ugandans to turn up for vaccination, the uptake still remains low.

To-date, only 577, 036 people have been vaccinated according to figures by MoH, despite the presence of over 960,000 AstraZeneca doses.

Earlier this week, Dr. Diana Atwiine the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, said government would consider introducing another lockdown due to the surge in Covid-19 cases.

Meanwhile, President Yoweri Museveni will address the nation tonight on the way forward regarding the current Covid-19 situation.