The Katikkiro of Buganda, Charles Peter Mayiga has urged parents to take part in the forthcoming countrywide vaccination exercise against Malaria.
“Health is a priority in Buganda Kingdom because the journey to put Buganda back on top requires healthy people. In most homes, we are affected by different diseases, but malaria is the disease that bothers us the most. It kills many people every second, every minute, and every day that passes in Buganda and Uganda at large,” Mayiga said.
“ The World Health Organization approved a vaccine against malaria. If a child is immunized between 6 months and 2 years. I urge you to bring children for immunization.”
Malaria is the leading cause of illness and death in Uganda, particularly affecting children under five years of age.
According to the 2024 HMIS report, every day, 32,900 people get sick due to Malaria and are not able to conduct their routine activities.
Treating one episode of Malaria costs shs15,000 shillings in terms of buying drugs and transportation.
This money is enough for a meal in an average homestead.
Every day, 16 people die due to Malaria, a preventable disease! This is very devastating Every day, 6,500 children get sick of Malaria and of these,10 die daily.
Uganda remains one of the worst-hit countries by malaria, bearing an exceptionally high transmission rate and ranking third globally in malaria burden.
According to the World Malaria Report 2024, Uganda accounted for 4.8% of all malaria cases worldwide, with a staggering 12.6 million cases in 2023 alone.
This means that nearly 29% of the country’s population was affected by malaria in a single year.
Uganda will introduce the malaria vaccine in April 2025 as part of its routine immunization program. The vaccine rollout will prioritize districts with moderate and high malaria transmission.
The vaccine is free of charge, funded by the Ugandan government and international partners.
The vaccine complements other existing Malaria prevention and control measures including sleeping under insecticide treated mosquito nets and indoor residual spraying among others.
According to the Buganda premier, Uganda and Buganda will only prosper if the people are healthy and able to work and this can only happen if children are taken for vaccination against Malaria.
Dr. Jane Irene Nabakooza, a pediatrician and public health specialist said that whereas everyone is at risk of getting malaria, children under five years are are at a higher risk.
“Most of us get exposed to malaria such that by the age of five, we’ve been exposed many times to acquire enough immunity to malaria, but usually children after six months, lose their immunity they would have acquired from the mother. So, they have no immunity at all. It requires them a number of exposures before they can acquire that immunity that can protect them from severe forms of malaria,” she said.
“When we say higher risk, we’re talking about those who are prone to getting severe forms of malaria, but also more episodes of malaria. So, this vaccine is a pediatric vaccine. Most of the studies have been done around children, but then also children were prioritized because they are among the groups that are at a higher risk. Why? Because we are in an endemic country. What this vaccine does is to prevent the infection of the liver by those young forms, because when they get into the liver, they mature before they infect the red blood cells. So, the vaccine works around that point where the parasites are supposed to infect the liver so that you don’t have progression to severe malaria. It is usually severe malaria that leads to death,” Dr Nabakooza explained.
She noted that when severe malaria is prevented, the main achievement is preventing deaths.
“So, this vaccine works at the erythrocytic stage. It is pre erythrocytic because the vaccines, the malaria vaccines, are grouped into pre-erythrocytic, erythrocytic. So, the two of them work at that stage.”