Evaluation of Integrated Child Health Days as a Catch-Up Strategy for Immunization in Three Districts in Uganda.

Uganda's Integrated Child Health Day (ICHD) initiative aims to improve children's access to vaccinations. Although widely used as a catch-up vaccination strategy, the effectiveness of the ICHD program in increasing immunization coverage, especially among vulnerable populations, has not been recently evaluated. This study assessed the reach and uptake of ICHD for immunizations in Uganda.

Effect of 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine on trends of pneumococcal meningitis in children under five years, Uganda, 2003-2022.

Background: Pneumococcal meningitis, a vaccine-preventable disease caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn) is the leading bacterial meningitis in under five children. In April 2014, Uganda introduced routine immunization with 10-valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV10) for infants. The target coverage for herd immunity is ≥ 90% with three doses (PCV10-dose 3).

Strategies to Enhance COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake among Prioritized Groups, Uganda-Lessons Learned and Recommendations for Future Pandemics.

COVID-19 vaccination was launched in March 2021 in Uganda and initially prioritized persons >50 years of age, persons with underlying conditions, healthcare workers, teachers, and security forces. However, uptake remained low 5 months after the program launch. Makerere University's Infectious Diseases Institute supported Uganda's Ministry of Health in optimizing COVID-19 vaccination uptake models by using point-of-care, place of worship, and place of work engagement and the Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment model in 47 of 135 districts in Uganda, where we trained influencers to support mobilization for vaccination outreach under each model.

High acceptability and viral suppression of patients on Dolutegravir-based first-line regimens in pilot sites in Uganda: A mixed-methods prospective cohort study.

Uganda adopted the integrase inhibitor dolutegravir (DTG) as part its preferred first-line HIV treatment regimen in 2018. Prior to the national rollout, the Uganda Ministry of Health and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) launched a pilot study in July 2017 aimed at better understanding patients' and prescribers' experience and acceptability of DTG. Patients were enrolled in the study if they were newly initiating treatment or switched from an NNRTI regimen due to intolerance.

Multicentre evaluation of the new ORTHO VISION analyser.

Background: Implementation of fully automated analysers has become a crucial security step in the blood bank; it reduces human errors, allows standardisation and improves turnaround time (TAT).

Objectives: We aimed at evaluating the ease of use and the efficiency of the ORTHO VISION Analyser (VISION) in comparison to the ORTHO AutoVue Innova System (AutoVue) in six different laboratories.

Methods: After initial training and system configuration, VISION was used in parallel to AutoVue following the daily workload, both automates being based on ORTHO BioVue System column agglutination technology.