Oulanyah rallies Acholi on Covid-19 vaccination

Speaker Jacob Oulanyah has urged the people of Acholi Sub region and the rest of the country to positively respond to government's call to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the NRM consultative meeting with Acholi NRM leaders in Gulu City, Oulanyah, the NRM National Vice chairperson for Northern Uganda advised the public to reject the negative and baseless stereotypes being associated with Covid-19 vaccines.

"In this region, I have heard messages; some of them really unfortunate and misleading and I want to call upon all of you to respond to this call to be vaccinated. Personally, I have taken two shots of Astrazeneca. This is the same vaccine being taken by the citizens in US, UK, Europe and others," Oulanyah said.

"The vaccines may not be able to stop you from contracting the virus, but they will help one not to progress to severity."

Last week, the ministry of Health launched the Covid-19 vaccination campaign in Acholi sub region aimed at increasing the uptake of vaccination among the population aged 18 years and above. This follows concerns of low uptake in the sub region compared to other regions in the country.

The speaker attributed this low uptake of vaccines in the sub region to false messages associated with the vaccine that are being spread on social media.

"I am calling upon all of you to ignore all those other messages on social media and respond to the call to get vaccinated. Vaccination will be crucial in opening up schools, businesses, and other sectors of the economy," he said.

"The responses in other districts are hitting beyond 90% but here [in Acholi] because of the negative campaigns, people are beginning to roll back and yet these vaccines expire."

Oulanyah called upon the public to support government's effort to develop its own COVID-19 vaccine.

"As a country we have trained scientists and virologists who can do these things. Why should we wait for other countries to produce and then we wait for donations when we have the capacity to do our own? Let us support our scientists," Oulanyah said.

The ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations recently said they were in advanced stages of developing Uganda's own vaccine in partnership with other public health institutions.

Oulanyah asked the public to support the scientists behind the vaccine.