The Minister of State for Primary Health Care, Joyce Moriku Kaducu has cautioned aspiring politicians, especially presidential candidates against violating Covid-19 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

“We feel so sad, we feel so sorry it’s very unfortunate that most Ugandans are undisciplined especially the young people. Many Ugandans are going to end up in intensive care units. Very many Ugandans going to end up in hospitals which are already congested. Already hospitals are full to capacity. If I were the electro commission I think it’s better to just remove some candidates off the list because they aren’t respected.”

She made the remarks on Wednesday during a research conference on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in Africa held at Imperial Botanical hotel, Entebbe.

The purpose of the conference, held under the theme Promoting and Strengthening the interconnectedness of research training policy and practice to contribute towards the attainment of universal access of SRHR in Africa, is to bridge the gap between research policy makers, training institutions and intervention service providers.

Dr Elizabeth Nabiwemba, the director SRHR project said they intend to address issues to do with sexual reproductive health and rights in order to improve access to quality services to, especially women and adolescents.

“One of the implementation strategies of the project is to do research, document the research and disseminate findings so that they can be used to provide evidence for policy as well as influencing practices so the reason,” she said.

The Assistant commissioner Youth Affairs Ministry of Gender, Labour and social Development, Mr Francis Mondo Kyateka said 28 percent of Ugandan women have an unmet need for family planning

“A decline from 34 percent in 2011. Uganda has high maternal mortality ratio at 343 per 100,000 live births, a reduction from 505 per 100,000 live births in 2001/2002,” he said.

The current fertility rate for Uganda is 4.780 births per woman, a 2.35 percent decline from 2019.

In Uganda, modern contraceptive use among married and unmarried sexualy active female adolescents is 25.1 percent.

Mr Kyateka further said there has been a remarkable decline in the SRHR indicators as a result of the evidence-based advocacy.

“We’re not where we were yesterday but we’re not yet where we need to be. To date, young Ugandans are continuously exposed to sexual and reproductive health challenges such as high cases of early marriages, teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDs and sexual and gender-based violence.”