Vaccinate teachers and open schools - Lukwago urges government

Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago has disagreed with President Museveni’s move to tag school re-opening on vaccination of children between the age of 12-18.

President Museveni in his Friday address said that schools will only reopen when government completes vaccination of a ‘sufficient’ number of eligible persons and school going children.

Appearing on the NBS Morning Breeze on Monday, Lukwago said that this could have severe impact on the education system in the country since the vaccines are not available.

Lukwago urged government to instead focus on vaccinating teachers, and get learners back to school.

“Vaccinate the teachers and get our children back to school. They are not going to die,” Lukwago said.

Lukwago said that the idea that a sufficient number of school going children needs to be vaccinated for schools to reopen was ill advised since no one can tell when government will achieve that.

“At this rate, vaccination of learners will take more than five years. Our suggestion as the "People’s Government" is to vaccinate the elderly, those with underlying conditions, teachers and frontline workers,” Lukwago added.

According to the Ministry of Health data, only 1.1 million Ugandans have so far been vaccinated at least once while around 200,000 people have received both doses.

Lukwago said that it is time for government to stop lamenting and provide vaccines so that there is no gap in the education sector.

NRM director for communication Emmanuel Dombo however said government has set aside money to purchase the vaccines.

Dombo said that government is trying its best despite being short on resources and urged Ugandans to wait.

“The exit route, for now, is that people have to be alive. This is through following the SOPs. Secondly, the government has also been able to set money aside to procure vaccines,” Dombo said.