We engaged 23/30 (77%) of the mapped stakeholders’ groups in 6 in-person and 7 virtual meeting sessions. The initial meetings with stakeholders were mainly physical, intended to establish rapport, update stakeholders on the challenges of vaccination in the priority population, and discuss the role they can play. A total of 44 leaders of stakeholder groups participated in the physical meetings and the subsequent virtual meeting that involved training 1,333 members to be vaccination champions. Three of 6 of the initial engagements with the stakeholder leadership blended physical and virtual meetings.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Timeline series of engagements and their respective outputs (starting July 1, 2021) within the first 12 weeks of the COVID-19 vaccination project, Uganda, July–September 2021. ACP, AIDS Control Program; AHPC,...

Some of the engagements with the stakeholders lead to key outputs, such as mobilizing members for training as vaccination champions, piloting the models, engaging media to call to action priority populations for vaccination, and conducting targeted outreach of stakeholder members. Specifically, 3 stakeholders designated places of worship for targeted vaccination outreach campaigns (Watoto Ministries, Kakande Ministries, and Gadhafi Mosque). This process resulted in vaccinations from direct mobilization support from the stakeholders after the engagement with stakeholders targeting the key priority populations that are part of the stakeholder membership (Table 1; Figure 2).

We assessed COVID-19 vaccination by vaccination model (Table 2). During the implementation period of September–December 2021, a total of 75,098 vulnerable priority persons were vaccinated through activities and outreach based on the models. All 4 models were piloted in Kampala, where all stakeholder engagements occurred and were hosted in the IDI and Kampala HIV Project operational region. Those models were subsequently rolled out to other implementing regions. We assessed the percentage of overall COVID-19 vaccinations attributable to each model: point-of-care, 11%; place of worship, 38%; place of work, 8%; and SAGE, 43%.

Phase 1 of the National COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment Plan aimed to vaccinate 4.8 million priority persons (150,000 healthcare workers, 550,000 teachers, 250,000 security personnel, 3,348,5000 persons >50 years of age, and 500,000 persons with underlying conditions). In July 2021, 5 months into the national COVID-19 vaccination roll-out in Uganda, national-level vaccination uptake among those groups (by receipt of first dose) stood at 94,684/150,000 (63.1%) for healthcare workers, 158,406/550,000 (29%) for teachers, 142,509/250,000 (57%) for security personnel, 276,736/ 3,384,000 (8%) for persons >50 years of age, and 25,361/500,000 (5.1%) for persons with underlying conditions. As of November 15, 2021, approximately 4 months into the implementation of project activities from inception in July 2021, vaccination uptake improved to 140,635 (93.8%) for healthcare workers, 376,555 (68.595%) for teachers, 161,491 (64.6%) for security personnel, 511,142 (15.3%) for persons >50 years of age, and 40,443 (8.1%) for persons with underlying conditions.

For programmatic tracking, the CDC–PEPFAR supported districts were assigned 72,225 healthcare workers, 264,825 teachers, 120,375 security personnel, 1,612,304 persons >50 years of age, and 240,750 persons with underlying conditions as target contributions to the overall national target for priority populations for phase 1. Three months after initiation of project activities in the CDC–PEPFAR supported districts, vaccination uptake improved from 66,561/72,225 (92%) to 93,889/72,225 (130%) for healthcare workers, 105,310/264,825 (40%) to 238,791/264,825 (90%) for teachers, 29,808/120,375 (25%) to 40,041/120,375 (33%) for security personnel, 100,788/1,612,304 (6%) to 235,439,1,612,304 (15%) for persons >50 years of age, and 14,878/240,750 (6%) to 26,134/240,750 (11%) for persons with underlying conditions.

Figure 3

Figure 3. COVID-19 vaccination coverage among priority populations, by receipt of first (A) and second (B) dose, showing project inception date (vertical dashed line) and vaccine uptake trends among priority populations, Uganda,...

By the close of 2021, a total of 115,737/72,225 (160%) healthcare workers, 285,369/264,825 (108%) teachers, 49,773/120,375 (41%) security personnel, 713,776/1,612,304 (44%) persons >50 years of age, and 47,892/240,750 (20%) persons with underlying conditions were vaccinated in CDC–PEPFAR supported districts. In terms of the percentage of vaccinations nationwide per target group, those regions contributed 115,737/153,673 (75%) of vaccinations among healthcare workers, 285,369/403,184 (71%) of vaccinations among teachers, 49,773/161,491 (31%) of vaccinations among security personnel, 713,776/1,314,706 (54%) of vaccinations among persons >50 years of age, and 47,892/47,555 (101%) of vaccinations among persons with underlying conditions at the close of 2021 (Figure 3).