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The Malaria Vaccine Reaches More Districts, and the Cold Chain Becomes the Story

Routine immunisation is absorbing a new schedule. Whether it holds depends on fridges, fuel and health workers who are already stretched.

By Dr Agnes KiraboCentral and Eastern Uganda5 min read
A health worker vaccinating an infant at an outreach immunisation post under a tree in rural Uganda
Central and Eastern Uganda. 4 August 2026.
MixedPublic Health

At outreach posts, the new schedule is one more line on a card that already carries measles, polio and pentavalent doses. Mothers do not experience it as a policy announcement. They experience it as a longer queue and a second visit.

Where it strains

Health centre IIIs describe the same three pressures: fridge uptime when the grid is intermittent, transport allowances for outreach days, and a shortage of trained hands to record and follow up defaulters.

The vaccine is not the hard part. Getting the fourth dose into the same child a year later is the hard part.
In-charge, health centre III, eastern Uganda

District health teams say the coverage figures worth watching are not first-dose numbers, which look strong at launch, but completion rates twelve months on.

Sources & further reading
  1. Malaria vaccines - World Health Organization
  2. Ministry of Health Uganda - Government of Uganda
  3. Immunisation programmes - UNICEF Uganda
Dr Agnes Kirabo
Public Health Correspondent, Kampala

A clinician by training, Dr Agnes Kirabo covers immunisation, essential medicines supply and the operation of Uganda's district health system.

  • Immunisation programmes
  • Health financing
  • Essential medicines
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