1-09-12 Ugandans to get new vaccines in two years Halima Athumani Ordinary Ugandans will have to wait for

April 2013 to access Pneumococcal vaccine. Dr Ruth Aceng the director general health services says the vaccines for rotavirus and human papilloma virus will be available in 2014 in public hospitals. Rotavirus causes diarrhea in children while strep Pneumococcal virus causes pneumonia, meningitis and noninvasive disease like acute otitis media. Currently private hospitals avail the three vaccines but at a high cost. Dr Aceng says they have applied for the vaccines from the Global Action for Vaccine Initiative and they are waiting for their approval. Under the Uganda expanded programme for immunization, Ministry of Health is immunising against eight killer diseases. These include diphtheria, polio, tetanus, measles, whooping cough, and tuberculosis. In June 2002, vaccines were introduced for Hepatitis B and haemophilus influenza. Dr. Sabrina Kitaka a specialist in pediatric infectious diseases however, says there are thousands of killer diseases that can be vaccinated but countries have to buy those vaccines. Paeditricians want government to speed up access to Pneumococcal, rotavirus and measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to help decrease on morbidity and mortality. //Cue in: The new vacccines Cue out:is extremely high.// However, Dr Nantulya Florence a consultant peaditrician says every time there is a mass immunization programme, a lot of children do not access it. Dr. Nantulya says studies show there is low coverage of vaccine access, this is because many children get the first two immunisation schedules and fail to complete the third one. She notes that fewer still get the measles vaccine at nine months whose results are shown on the outbreaks of diseases. Dr. Nantulya says before government thinks of introducing new vaccines, they need to think about why the already available vaccines are not performing well in the general public. She adds that there is need to introduce new ones but find a strategy to ensure all children access all vaccines. //Cue in: Many children take

Cue out:about adding others.// The Global action for Vaccine Initiative (GAVI) in 2005 committed to advance up to 120 million dollars over 24 months, for AID, Tuberculosis and malaria. However, funding to Uganda was suspended after evidence came to light of mismanagement of Global Fund resources in 2005.