Amuru district COVID-19 Task force struggling to trace teachers

AMURU – The Amuru district COVID-19 Task Force is struggling to identify and trace teachers who have been vaccinated and those who have not.

Currently, most teachers of Amuru district are not based within the district. Some are in Gulu City, Gulu, Omoro and Nwoya districts.

Patrick Odong Olwedo, the Amuru District Health Officer (DHO) says, they don’t have any figures of how many teachers of Amuru district have been vaccinated as per the education minister’s directive on mandatory vaccination for all the teachers in the country in September this year.

Last week, Amuru district received a total of 2,744 dozes, comprising of 420 AstraZeneca doses while 2,324 are Mordena dozes.

Odong says, since most of the teachers live outside the district, they find difficulties in knowing whether they were vaccinated from their respective district of residence or not. He further notes that, at the time of launching the vaccinations, the turnup of teachers was very low.

“Most of our teachers don’t stay within the district and that’s the blow we are facing now because we can’t know or trace which teacher has received the vaccination,” Odong notes.

According to Olwedo, they have tasked all the school administrators to submit the names of their staff to the district health department for verification.

Michael Lakony, the Amuru district LCV Chairperson says, with the task force’s uncertainty over the number of teachers vaccinated, it positions the district in a very tricky position as far as the reopening of schools in January is concerned.

Lakony wants the district education department to devise mechanisms of ensuring all the teachers in the district are vaccinated whether from within the district or outside the district.

https://thecooperator.news/masindi-fails-to-pay-covid-19-district-task-force/

“We have directed all schools to come up with mechanisms for identifying every teacher and other staff who have or have not received all the vaccinations because they know better. For us, what we want is for all the teachers and staff to be vaccinated,” said Lakony.

The district has more than 145 schools currently with 36 nursery schools, 97 primary schools, 11 secondary schools, 1 vocational school with over 600 teachers teaching government, private and community schools.

The district this week received more than 2,700 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to vaccinate the people in Amuru district.

Amuru district has a population projection of 216, 800 people according to the 2020 Uganda Bureau of Statistics.

Buy your copy of theCooperator magazine from one of our countrywide vending points or an e-copy on emag.thecooperator.news