Uganda has fastest COVID rate in Africa

Uganda’s rising cases worrying

Despite recent rises, Uganda’s numbers of COVID infections and deaths are low. But, they are significant because the country previously had even lower numbers of infections, including among health workers, and deaths.

In a worrying trend, the seven new cases in a week pushed the countries cumulative number of infected health workers to 26. This placed Uganda among the top five countries with health worker infections.

Uganda has since the start of August witnessed a jump in the number of positive cases found in each batch of daily testing.

More men than women are catching the disease and dying, according to Ministry of Health statistics. The most affected are men aged between 20 and 50 years with the 30-39 age group most infected. In terms of death, men aged between 60 to 69 years are most hit followed by those between 30 and 40 years. Among women, death has occurred evenly among ages 30 to 80 years.

Starting on Aug.06 when 1.4% was found positive, the numbers have climbed to an average of about 3% positives in each batch. There was a spike of 7.3% on Aug.21 which is the highest on record. Up to 318 cases tested positive out of 4,102 testing results done on that day.

Meanwhile the percentage of local cases within the community compared to imported cases from outside the country has also been rising.

From low levels of about 60% seen before Aug.01, the local cases now comprise over 90% of confirmed new cases.

By Aug. 25 when the WHO released its report, Uganda’s cumulative COVID-19 cases stood at 2525 positive cases out of cumulative 282,859 tests done since March 21 when the first case was reported.

By Aug.25, Uganda had recorded 26 cumulative deaths and 1268 recoveries.

Cases have been registered in many districts across the country, including Kampala, Wakiso, Buikwe, Luweero, Namisindwa, Mukono, Jinja, Kabale, Amuru, Oyam, and Tororo. The rising cases in the capital district, Kampala, and Metropolitan areas has raised most concern.

Kampala registered its first COVID-19 case on March 23 and hit the one hundredth infection on July 31; a four months period. Then it took only 10 days to hit 200 cases, and less than 5 days to near the 400 mark.

Up to 90% of Kampala COVID-19 cases have been linked to users of public transport and the taxi park, according to Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA). Offices, workshops, and large shopping buildings called arcades have also contributed together with areas of high population concentrations, such as the low income settlements of Kasosoko, Kisenyi and Nakulabye.

The Ministry of Health has been urging residents to observe the standard operating procedure for COVID-19 prevention that include wearing masks at all times when in public, constantly washing hands with soap and water or using sanitisers, avoiding large gathering and crowded places such as political or social events and keeping at least  two metres apart during gatherings. But there is increasing anxiety that the country could once again be pushed into a hard lockdown.

The Minister for Kampala, Betty Amongi, on Aug.21 said residents need to take the COVID 19 threat seriously.

“If we don’t change our behaviour of non-compliance to health safety measures and downplaying the threat of COVID-19, the situation will worsen which will lead us into a lockdown,” she said.

Decreasing rate in Africa

Uganda’s rising cases go against a slowing down trend of COVID-19 infections across the continent.

The high rise in Uganda’s number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases comes at a time when cases in Africa have just exceeded 1,000,000. It is exactly six months since the first case in Africa was reported in Egypt on Feb. 14. As of Aug. 25, a cumulative total of 1,014, 834 COVID-19 cases was reported in the region.

The majority of the new cases were reported in South Africa, 40% (20,873) of all reported cases, although with a sustained downward trend. Other previous hotspots countries that have recorded a reduction in case incidence include Ghana, Kenya, Gabon, Madagascar and Zambia.

The WHO cautions that while the observed declining trends are encouraging, the figures should be cautiously interpreted as they may be affected by many factors, including the current testing capacity and strategy, and delays in reporting.

Apart from Uganda, Rwanda, and Comoros that reported percentage increases above 100% in the latest WHO reporting period, other countries with high percentage increases in new infections are Togo (78%), Sao Tome and Principe (75%), Sierra Leone (56%), Zimbabwe (46%), Namibia (37%) and Angola (37%).

At the same time, more countries recorded a decrease in new cases. These include; Liberia  (65%), Central  African Republic  (63%), Ghana  (54%), Mali  (53%), Malawi  (52%), Guinea-Bissau  (51%), Gabon  (47%), Eswatini (42%), Guinea (41%), Burundi  (39%), Benin  (38%), Niger (33%), Madagascar (33%), Kenya (33%), Zambia (32%) and Lesotho (30%).

South Africa, which has been reporting the highest number of cases, observed a 20% decrease. Tanzania did not submit any report indicating any confirmed case.

Countries recording high percentage new health worker infections include Senegal with 78 cases as leader of the list followed by Namibia (75), Mozambique (42), Sierra Leone (7), Malawi (3) and Togo (2).

According to the data, the total number of deaths reported in Africa is 20,787 reported in 45 countries, giving an overall case fatality ratio (CFR) of 2.0%.

The five countries with most deaths are South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Cameroon, and Kenya. They account for 82% (16,855) of the total deaths reported in the region. The Aug. 25 figures in the region represent 4.3% of confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2.6% of deaths reported worldwide.