Makerere University in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is implementing a project entitled “Ensuring access to health care and medicines during COVID-19: critical challenges and feasible policy options for the medicines retail sector”. This project, builds on a decade of research in the Ugandan Medicine Retail Sector (MRS), aims to understand and mitigate the vulnerability of supply and access to medicines within the Uganda health system (WHO Roadmap priorities 9.9, 9.11). Project activities will document how COVID-19 and the national response to the pandemic has shaped the ability of the MRS to deliver antibiotics, malaria medicines and contraceptives; identify feasible, costed policy actions to mitigate any negative impact of COVID-19 on access to medicines; and identify ways that the MRS can play an active role in response to ongoing and future pandemics.