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 immunised.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
Ms Opendi said the 666 cult was growing.
"It started in a few districts in eastern Uganda, but now it has spread and now we are seeing it all over the country," she said.
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 immunisation cards to allow them to attend school.
Three percent of the Uganda's children had not been immunised, said Ms Opendi.
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.
