The government has drawn a contingency budget of Shs1.32 trillion that details how to handle a third coronavirus wave should it hit the country.
The plan, which will be presented to Parliament next week, details the different areas such as coordination, vaccination, surveillance and case management.
The country is battling a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has so far claimed 2,203 lives and Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja, who will present the budget, said the government has learnt lessons from the current wave.
“In anticipation of a potential resurgence of COVID-19 in another wave and after a mid-term review, the Ministry of Health together with partners between the months of February and March developed a COVID-19 resurgence plan,” reads part of the report.
The resurgence plan indicates that government will need a total of 1.32 trillion Shillings budget and part of this will cater for coordination (12 billion), surveillance (59.3 billion), laboratory (84.98 billion), case management (93.8 billion), risk management (68.1 billion), community engagement (6.5 billion), SIR (70.3 billion), logistics (808 billion), continuity of essential services (114.1 billion) and vaccination (2.62 billion).
“The main cost drivers are; logistics (primarily for laboratory supplies, personal protective equipment for health workers and oxygen) and implementation of the care for the Covid-19 cases,” Nabbanja explains.
She adds that the budget for the immediate requirements for July to December 2021 amounts to 372.87 billion Shillings for different activities under the Ministry of Health.
The report indicates that Uganda will also have to undertake complex and non-conventional measures to increase its competitiveness in acquiring vaccines for the population in order to increase access to Covid-19 vaccines.
“To guide this endeavour in the context of global shortage in supply, a priority list of Covid-19 vaccines has been generated to guide efforts. The priority list provides leverage for the Ministry of Health to instruct the National Medical Stores to initiate procurement of vaccines on the list when the stocks become available,” further reads the report.
Nabbanja explains that the priority list of COVID-19 vaccines are guided by the cost of acquisition and deployment, the country’s capacity to store and distribute the vaccines of recommended temperatures, emergency use listing by World Health Organization -WHO and emergency use authorization by National Drug Authority- NDA.
She adds that with the considered parameters, the proposed priority list of COVID-19 vaccines for use in Uganda is AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer BioNTech, SINOVAC, S/NOPHARM, Sputnik V, Sputnik Lite and Moderna.