Ministry of Health, WHO vaccinate UPDF soldiers against Ebola
FORT PORTAL – The Ministry of Health in partnership with the World Health Organization [WHO] has launched the Ebola vaccination exercise for UPDF soldiers carrying out Operation Shujaa in DR Congo.
The vaccination against Ebola was launched on Tuesday in Muhooti barracks in Fort Portal city by the Minister of Health Dr.Jane Ruth Aceng.
The exercise will be rolled out to health officials on the frontline as more vaccines arrive, according to the minister.
Dr. Aceng said they thought it extremely important to start with UPDF soldiers participating in the joint ongoing Operation Shujaa in DR Congo,
She said 12,000 doses of the Ebola vaccine have been secured for the soldiers and frontline health workers to prevent them from contracting the virus.
“We have deployed 12,000 doses of the Ebola mark vaccine which protects against Ebola Zaire and we will vaccinate as many as over 10,000 UPDF soldiers with this vaccine,” she noted.
She said 12,000 doses of vaccine were provided by WHO to treat soldiers fighting Allied Democratic Forces [ADF] rebels.
Dr.Aceng said the mass vaccination against Ebola will later be rolled out to health workers when more vaccines arrive.
She confirmed that both Mark and Johnson and Johnson vaccines have been pre-qualified by WHO and they are certified and they are safe, effective, and efficacious.
“We want to ensure we don’t get any Ebola outbreak in Uganda. It is extremely important as a country because we share a border and previously we have imported cases from the Eastern region of the DRC,” she said.
The WHO indicates that Uganda has had at least four outbreaks of the deadly disease in 2000, 2014, 2017, and 2018.
The biggest and most deadly outbreak was in 2000 when 425 Ebola cases and 224 deaths were registered.
The WHO country representative to Uganda, Dr.Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam said vaccinating the frontline officers will as well protect their families and the population to which they would have imported the virus to.
“Through this, we protect not only the soldiers, not only the health workers but also protecting their families and the general population of Uganda,” he said.
The UPDF recently trained 32 medical personnel and 15 personnel in case management who will participate in the vaccination exercise.
The vaccination exercise is being conducted under the theme; “Protecting the fighting forces’ health through provision of tested preventive public health intervention”.
UPDF medical personnel have been equipped with the laboratory and all equipment to test suspected cases while health authorities intensified surveillance in border districts of Kasese, Bundibugyo, Ntoroko, Kanungu, Kisoro, and others facing an Ebola risk.
On November 30, 2021, UPDF and FARDC soldiers launched Operation Shujaa to eliminate ADF rebels from Eastern Congo where they have terrorised villages, killing people, raping women, and plundering natural resources.
https://thecooperator.news/updf-kills-adf-rebels-in-drc-recovers-guns-and-ammunitions/
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