Ugandan
authorities are seeking to legally mandate vaccines in draft legislation aimed
at boosting the East African country’s drive to inoculate more people against
COVID-19.

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The
proposed bill, which is subject to changes as it faces scrutiny by a
parliamentary health committee, calls for a six-month jail term for failure to
comply with vaccination requirements during disease outbreaks.

“It
is the right thing to do,” said Alfred Driwale, a public official who leads
Uganda’s vaccination efforts, speaking of the proposed changes to the country’s
public health law.

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Attempts
by Ugandan officials in recent months to enforce limited mandates have been
unsuccessful. A vaccine requirement for people using public transport faced
opposition from operators, and bars have returned to business after an extended
lockdown without strict adherence to pandemic-era rules.

400,000 vaccine doses wasted

Uganda’s
health minister announced in January that more than 400,000 vaccine doses were
to be destroyed after they expired before being used. That’s a considerable
loss to a government that has administered only about 12.7 million doses and
whose goal is to inoculate at least half of its 44 million people.

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President
Yoweri Museveni had warned last year that local officials would be held
accountable for any expired doses, putting pressure on them to administer
substantial batches of vaccines that often arrived with looming expiration
dates.

Now
it appears authorities will try to codify vaccine mandates.

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“We
survived, and almost eliminated polio, because of vaccines,” said Fox Odoi, a
pro-government legislator who is an outspoken supporter of vaccine mandates. “I
don’t have polio now because of the vaccines that I took.”

Odoi,
who chairs the parliamentary committee on human rights, said the government has
“a political responsibility” to enforce vaccine mandates in a country with
a weak health system and facing widespread vaccine hesitancy. There have been
reports of fake COVID-19 vaccination cards sold in downtown Kampala, Uganda’s
capital.

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John
Nkengasong, the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
has previously warned that African governments might have to resort to vaccine
mandates if their citizens aren’t eager to get increasingly available doses.

African
nations such as Zimbabwe and Ghana have announced vaccine mandates for public
employees and others.

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US donated 11 million vaccine
doses

In
Uganda, which has reported more than 162,000 virus cases, the US alone has
donated 11 million vaccine doses — part of a wave of charity toward developing
countries whose leaders have accused rich nations of hoarding vaccine doses at
their expense.

Still,
Africa remains the world’s least vaccinated continent against COVID-19, with
about 11% of the continent’s 1.3 billion people fully jabbed.

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Only
six of Africa’s 54 countries had met the global target of vaccinating 40% of
their populations against COVID-19 by the end of 2021, according to the World
Health Organization.