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Buvuma police headquarters closed after 10 suspects test positive for COVID-19

Buvuma District Police Headquarters.

Buvuma, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT |   Buvuma District Police headquarter has suspended operations after 10 suspects tested positive for COVID-19.  The suspects, who were transported to Mulago Hospital on Monday arrested on Friday for different charges. 

They were supposed to be arraigned before the Grade I Magistrates court on Monday. But before the session, results from tests conducted after their arrest indicated that all of them were positive for COVID-19. Buvuma district has so far registered 47 cases out of the 300 tests carried out since the outbreak of the pandemic. 

Buvuma Acting Resident District Commissioner Juma Kigongo says that after the incident, the COVID-19  task force closed the police operations and subjected all police officers to self-isolation for the mandatory 14 days. The closed station serves as the central police for all the scattered islands making up Buvuma district. It has one office block, with a store and a male detention facility. Another detached small block serves as a female detention facility. 

The task force has now written to the police headquarters for guidance on guide how law and order can be maintained in the community at a time when the entire workforce is quarantined. It has also requested for guidance on the management of new suspects once identified in the district.

According to Kigongo, most of the cases previously tested in Buvuma have been treated and discharged from hospitals while about five of them were managed at their homes.  He expresses fear that many people cross into the district from Kalangala, Tanzania and Kenya without being screened. 

The landing sites of Luwero and Ziiru in Lwajje and Lyabaana sub-counties share a border with Tanzania while Lubya sub-county also with two landing sites of Labolo and Kirewe also share borderlines with Kenya. But Kigongo says that the task force does not have the capacity to monitor all the entrants. 

Buvuma County Member of Parliament Robert Migadde says that the government should give more attention to island districts; give them more masks, funds for monitoring and health equipment to handle the situation.

Barbra Kanyambo a resident from Lyabaana sub-county says the the government should empower island task forces to tighten measures put up against the deadly disease. 

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