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Ugandans no longer fear COVID-19

Going forward

 Interestingly, the ministry officials said that in terms of COVID-19 surveillance and mechanisms for case detection, Namisindwa is one of the best performing districts with average daily reporting standing at 100%: to date with 263 alert samples (all negative) collected since May 2020.

The officials said the Namisindwa District COVID-19 task force has since been reactivated to coordinate the district response. They said 30 contacts to the deceased have been listed and placed under quarantine by health authorities in both Namisindwa and Mbale districts. These include family members and healthcare workers, according to Richard Kabanda, the Acting Commissioner Health Services (Health Promotion) in the Ministry of Health.

“This is critical and an eye opener for the general public. Many people thought Uganda had no COVID or it was different from what the rest of the world is facing. But we have now seen that COVID is real, dangerous and kills,” he said.

He said the contacts will be monitored daily for fourteen (14) days as per our protocol by district surveillance teams supported by Ministry of Health experts who will be deployed in the district.

Namisindwa District is bordered by Bududa District to the north, Kenya to the east and south, Tororo District to the south-west, and Manafwa District to the west. The Lwakhaha border crossing is a major border point although there are also a lot of illegal border crossings between Uganda and Kenya.

Going forward, Mulumba thinks, as the coronavirus continues to spread in the countries that neighbour Uganda coupled with porous borders, it is a matter of time before the virus accelerates in the communities.

“Uganda is not insulated and the risk of community transmissions is high,” he told The Independent, “The government needs to get back on the drawing board and mobilize people on the ground.”

Health experts say much as the spread of the coronavirus in Africa has lagged behind much of the world, it is now picking up speed.

“What we are starting to see is a continued acceleration of transmission in a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa and I think that has to be taken very very seriously,” Michael Ryan, an  epidemiologist who heads the World Health Organization’s health emergencies programme said during a virtual news conference recently.

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3 comments

  1. I would contribute this profound ignorance to the fact that most Ugandans don’t have the slightest idea how destructive and deadly this virus is. Most Ugandans don’t get to know the plight of other countries and how the virus is robbing these societies of their folk. The lack of information and a deficit in understanding the pandemic make for such figures. If only we would be able to decimate information to all people especially information from outside Uganda, maybe these figures would change. Peasants in the rural areas don’t have access to international news! They don’t have access even to domestic news. Hence they can’t compare the effect of the pandemic in Uganda with other countries! People need to “see” those graves and coffins in Brazil and Columbia to understand this virus!Not to merely depend on numbers from Uganda. Awareness is lacking on the side of the Ministry of Health.

  2. But then,why is that the figures on covid 19 stats keeping changing abnormally eg there is when the number of recoveries were more than the cases we had and previously we had registered more than 1010 recoveries but so far I am seeing that we have less than 1000 recoveries.let us be notified of the real thing and that’s when we shall become more serious.

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