The Minister of ICT and National Guidance, Judith Nabakooba, has expressed concern and said the current situation of Covid-19 in Kampala is worrying and getting out of hand, given the unfortunate phenomenon that even the Arcades that just reopened recently have started to register positive cases.
Nabakooba was on Sunday addressing the media and said it is of even greater concern that most of the people dying from Covid-19 their source of infection is not known making it difficult for contact tracing.
“Uganda’s total Covid-19 death currently stands at 14, all registered in a period of less than a month since confirming first case on July 21, however I want to inform the country that we can still avoid this unfortunate state of affairs if we decide to obey the guidelines including seeking early medical assistance in case of any symptoms,” she said.
According to figures by the Ministry of Health, the week of 28th July to 3rd August, Kampala registered 23 cases of Covid -19 and the following week of 4th August to 12th, this number doubled to 56, thus worrying government.
Nabakooba advised people in Kampala to stay at home if what is taking them to the city on a daily basis is not important, saying they can choose to do shopping from the neighborhood or conduct business via the phone and online.
“Members of the public especially those in Kampala and Wakiso should understand the seriousness of the disease and take precautionary measures,” the Minister warned.
The Minister further revealed that the Ministry of health has also noted a number of high risk areas with new transmissions including the districts of Masaka, Buikwe and Adjumani which are now registering many new cases.
“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,” Nabakooba said.
She said security forces including the police are going to be more vigilant towards enforcing wearing of masks in pubic, social distancing and other preventive measures.
The Minister also went ahead and revealed that government intends to establish designated places for burying victims of Covid-19 should rise in fatalities persist.
Under the current setting, the Ministry of Health has a burial team assisted by the Uganda Red Cross who burry the Covid -19 dead with consent of the families in observance of infection prevention control.
But Nabakooba says if the death toll rises like in some countries, it will be hard to give people a descent burial but instead opt for designated places to prevent the spread of the deadly disease.
“If the number of Covid-19 deaths continues at this rate, Government will soon ask all districts and municipalities to identify designated burial places to handle the dead,” said Nabakooba.
