A new Ugandan law could see parents face up to six months in jail for failing to vaccinate their children.
Ugandan State Minister for Health and Primary Care, Sarah Achieng Opendi, told the BBC Focus on Africa radio program the new law had been legislated to help the Ugandan government reach their vaccination targets.
More importantly, the law also provided the much-needed jurisdiction for authorities to arrest and charge religious cult leaders who advocate against vaccines.
Some religious leaders have previously been arrested but could not be charged because there was no specific law to detain them, Ms Opendi said.
Parents and members of a religious cult, called 666, promote antivaxxer ideologies and therefore refuse to let their children get immunized.
Ms Opendi said the 666 cult was growing. He explained that it startd in a few districts in eastern Uganda and was spreading all over the country.
The new legislation campaigns for the inoculations of several preventable diseases including polio and meningitis, which are still prevalent in the region.
The law also mandates all children have immunization cards to allow them to attend school.
In 2015, the World Health Organization estimated that 70 children out of every 1,000 will die before they reached the age of five in Uganda.
The law was signed by President Yoweri Museveni on March 10, but was only recently made public.
