The minister for information and national guidance Judith Nabakooba reveals that If the number of COVID-19 deaths continue rising at this rate, government will soon ask all districts and municipalities to identify designated burial places to handle the dead.
Uganda registered her first COVID 19 positive case in mid-March which prompted the president to act swiftly by announcing a nationwide lock down of close to three months.
Currently, the total number of deaths is 13 and all these are within a space of less than one month. Of even greater concern is that for most of the people dying, their source of infection is not known making it difficult for contact tracing. Says the minister.
Officials from the health ministry earlier cautioned the nation that with the high rising COVID 19 cases, Uganda shifted to the third stage of community infections which is very dangerous and extremely worrying to the government.
The minister further reminds the country that we can still avoid this unfortunate state of affairs if we decide to obey the set health guidelines including seeking early medical assistance in case of any symptoms, social distancing, wearing face masks, washing hands or sanitizing them.
“I want members of the public especially those in Kampala and Wakiso to understand the seriousness of what is happening.” This according to the minister.
Between the week of 28th July to 3rd August, Kampala registered 23 cases of COVID-19.
The following week of 4th August to 12th, this number had more than doubled to 56. We are yet to get statistics for this week. On 14th this week, we registered the highest number of single infections with a total of 49 cases.
The situation in Kampala is getting out of hand. It is unfortunate to note that even the arcades that just reopened recently have started to register positive cases.
We therefore call upon all residents and those doing business in Kampala and Wakiso to take these developments seriously.
If what is taking you to Kampala on a daily basis is not important, please stay at home. You can choose to do your shopping from your neighborhood or conduct your business via the phone. It is everyone’s responsibility to keep safe from COVID-19.
Apart from Kampala, the Ministry of Health has also noted a number of new high risk areas with new transmissions.
Districts such as Masaka, Buikwe, Namisindwa and Adjumani are now registering many new cases. Other high risk places coming up include markets and landing sites.
I call upon all leaders, residents and workers in these places to be extra vigilant because we all know what to do by now.
In order to scale up the level of prevention, government is calling upon all district and regional task force committees to embrace more stakeholders in their activities.
Security forces including the police are going to be more vigilant towards enforcing the directives such as wearing of masks in public, social distancing and others.
