Peninah Lukuyah is a peasant in Kiwata village, Bugobero sub-county in Manafwa district. 

Three days after she received her COVID-19 jab last year, she fell sick and when she visited the nearby Bugobero Health Centre IV, she was told she had malaria. 

She was given malaria drugs and successfully treated the disease. 

As Lukuyah recovered, her neighbours who had not taken the COVID-19 jab declined to be immunised for fear that they would also fall sick. 

Despite being treated successfully for malaria, Lukuyah and her neighbours were convinced that the sickness had resulted from the COVID-19 jab that she had taken at the health centre. 

“The doctor warned me of the after-effects of the jab and among them was musujja (Lumasaba word for malaria and fever). I wish I had not taken this jab, it almost killed me,” Lukuyah says. 

The rumours about Lukuyah’s sickness forced members of the village health teams to threaten arrest against anyone who said COVID-19 vaccination was bad. 

According to the health ministry and the World Health Organisation (WHO), fever is one of the side effects of the COVID-19 vaccination, but it does not last long. 

WHO says the fever after a COVID-19 jab is a sign that the body is developing protection against the virus. 

WHO and the Ministry of Health list other side effects of the COVID-19 jab as fatigue, headache, muscle ache, chills, diarrhoea and pain or redness at the injection site. 

However, not everyone will experience side effects, medical experts say. 

The Ministry of Health advises that if the side effects get worse after 24 hours or your side effects don’t go away in a few days, contact your healthcare provider for advice. 

Uganda has so far immunised 10,790,397 people fully (two doses), translating to 26% of the population. Among the vaccines administered in Uganda are AstraZeneca, Covaxin, Sinovac, Sinopharm, Johnson and Johnson (J&J) Janssen, Moderna and Pfizer. 

More sensitisation needed to reduce fear 

Fabiano Kundu, a member of the village health team committee in Bunefule, blames the local myths and falsehoods about vaccines on the failure of the Ministry of health to communicate effectively.  

He says people have not been sensitized well about the side effects of the virus, which has given room for myths and falsehoods to spread.
 
“One of the side effects, for example, is, fever, but in our village, people don’t know the difference between malaria and fever. If someone gets malaria from a mosquito bite after vaccination, he will attribute it to the vaccine,” he says. 

Michael Aboneka, a human rights lawyer, says the citizens’ right to information about the COVID-19 vaccines has not been well observed by the Government. 

He says information in the media about the vaccine and its side effects greatly reduced as COVID-19 numbers went down. 

He says most people do not even understand the types of vaccines they took and the implications of the consent forms that they signed during vaccination, yet signing it took away liability from the Government in case of severe side effects of the vaccine on a citizen. 

The consent form that people sign before vaccination reads: “As with any vaccine, there is no certainty that I will become immune or that I will not experience any adverse events from the vaccine. I voluntarily assume full responsibility for any events that may result due to vaccination.” 

Aboneka says the Government needs to invest more in spreading the right information through the mass media. 

Aboneka adds: “If you ask people today whether they remember anything they signed up to, I bet any will remember. The idea is that whoever was attending to those being vaccinated had a duty to explain, in the language they understand. It is not enough to claim that one signed the consent form, therefore, there is no liability on the part of the administrator of the vaccine.” 

Health bill should be improved  

Aboneka says the proposed Health Bill makes matters worse as it does not address the people’s right to information or to decide. 

“Compulsory treatment, detention and vaccination violate the freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment for those who may not have consented. Further, the mandatory vaccination violates the right to privacy (under article 27 of the Constitution) of an individual as their body is being forced to be exposed to external factors. In a ruling over this matter, the Constitutional Court in the Czech Republic said: “A public authority deciding on the enforcement of the vaccination duty or the penalty for non-compliance with it must take into account the exceptional reasons advanced by the claimant for refusing to undergo vaccination,” he said. 

The chairperson of Parliament’s health committee, Dr Charles Ayume, told New Vision that the Bill was being enhanced to take care of not only COVID-19 but other emerging global diseases. 

Asked whether the proposals in the Bill were harsh or in violation of human rights, Dr Ayume said: “Let's wait for the Bill to be tabled in its final form”. 

The Bill that was presented to the health committee of Parliament in February 2022, had proposed a jail term of six months or a fine of sh4m for people who do not get vaccinated, but it has since been put on ice.