By Fred Kiva
Uganda’s total confirmed COVID-19 cases have further risen to 88 after three more were registered on Saturday.
The rise in cases comes at a time when Ugandans are looking forward to opening the economy from a 21-day lockdown on Tuesday, May 5, 2020.
President Yoweri Museveni is expected to address the nation Monday evening to give an update on COVID-19 and the way forward on the lockdown.
The country has been under lockdown, one of the measures imposed to check the spread of the highly contagious COVID-19. Under lockdown, several businesses such as public transport, saloons, General Merchandise shops among others have been under a ban.
In a tweet on Saturday evening, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng said, of the three new cases confirmed, two were out of the 1,922 samples of truck drivers; one Kenyan and a Burundian who arrived via the Malaba border point. “Efforts are underway to track them,” the Minister said adding that the third confirmed case was registered out of the 562 samples from the community. He is a 22-year-old Ugandan male from Rakai District.
Aceng explained that the Ugandan male entered the country from Bukoba, Tanzania. He is currently at home with his parents. “Efforts to evacuate him to Masaka Regional Referral Hospital and quarantine his parents are underway,” she said. Two other cases were announced by the Ministry earlier on Saturday.
They were; a 35-year-old Kenyan male truck driver who arrived in Uganda via Busia Border and a Ugandan male from Masindi district who was confirmed by the Ministry of Health rapid assessment survey.
The survey intends to evaluate if there is community transmission of COVID-19 in Uganda and establish its extent. Results from the survey will inform the phased lifting of the current lockdown.
Uganda is the only East African country with the least number of confirmed cases of coronavirus, at 88, majority of them being imported from neighboring countries (Truck drivers from Kenya and Tanzania) over 50 patients have so been discharged from hospitals and no covid-19 related death has been registered in Uganda.
As per statistics from the John Hopkins University, Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC), and the respective official government data, Tanzania has 480, the highest confirmed COVID-19 cases in East Africa, followed by Kenya with 435 cases and Rwanda with 255 cases.
