By Andrew Irumba
Kampala: Officials at the Ministry of Health and the management of Greenhill Academy have been dragged to court by parents of two children for illegally immunising their children against Polio, Measles and Rubella-MMR, without their consent.
Spy Uganda has established that the parents accuse the Ministry of Health of allegedly forcefully immunizing their two children without seeking permission or consulting them first, on October 17, 2019
The mass immunisation exercise kicked off last week after being launched by the Minister of Health, Dr Ruth Aceng, who was present as her daughter was also being immunized.
The concerned parents contend that medics who carried out the immunization exercise ignored pleas from the two children who informed them that their parents had refused them to get immunized because they were already immunized.
The health ministry is also accused of not properly informing the public about the immunisation exercise and side effects that might be associated to the MMR vaccine.
The parents also asserted that they were not informed about some of the side effects associated with the vaccine especially among children who are HIV positive.
They have since demanded the Ministry to avail the samples of the vaccine used at Greenhill Academy for independent testing. The Health ministry and Greenhill Academy have been given seven days to respond to the matter or else the case will be decided in their absence.
The mass vaccination exercise was scheduled to end on October 20, but the ministry of health decided to extend it till Monday, October 21, so as to hit the target of vaccinating over seven million children aged 15-years and below.
