Speaking to URN in an interview on Tuesday, Dr Col Henry Kyobe, the COVID-19 incident commander in the Ministry said what their surveillance teams are seeing and the trends in cases testing positive for the viral disease are not unique from what has been happening over the past one year.
The Ministry
of Health has allayed fears of a looming lockdown following viral social media
claims around a purported surge in COVID-19 infections in Uganda.
Speaking to
URN in an interview on Tuesday, Dr Col Henry Kyobe, the COVID-19 incident
commander in the Ministry, said what their surveillance teams are seeing and the
trends in cases testing positive for the viral disease are not unique from what has been happening over the past year.
Kyobe said
they have only been picking dozens of positive cases from thousands of samples
tested regularly for pneumonia-related illnesses.
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surges of COVID-19”. //
Claims of a
new lethal variant of COVID-19 followed reports from Bullisa district that ten oil
workers under the Tilenga project area, being operated by TotalEnergies, had
tested positive during a testing exercise within the camp.
In an interview
with URN on Tuesday, Robert Mugabe, the Buliisa district Health Educator, confirmed
that all ten first presented with COVID-19-like symptoms, including severe
headache, fever, cough and sore throat before being tested.
Explaining
that all the cases were minor, Mugabe further revealed that currently 8 out of
the 10 had completed their treatment, while two are still undergoing treatment
at the COVID-19 treatment unit established within the camp and that they are
responding well to treatment.
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the camp.”//
He in
addition noted that another 50 individuals working within the camp are being
closely monitored for any symptoms of the disease.
However,
according to Kyobe, such results obtained from a camp or cluster of people working
or living together or not cause for alarm as transmission of respiratory infections
is quicker under such circumstances. Even there, he says, there haven’t been a
big number of people presenting with severe forms of the disease, which would
under normal circumstances cause concern.
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cause for alarm”. //
Asked whether
this scare should be a wake-up call for Ugandans to seek booster doses against
COVID-19, the official noted that while this would be ideal, the distribution
of the jabs across the country is not currently clear, considering that many of
them had been withdrawn due to non-use.
Earlier, the Health Minister in charge of Primary HealthCare, Margret Muhanga Mugisa, had said
that the country had borrowed up to 80 million dollars to procure COVID-19 vaccines, but these have been destroyed after they expired in health
facilities.
Mugabe has cautioned the community, especially those being accommodated
in the oil camps, to remain calm and strictly adhere to the COVID-19 standard
operating procedures (SOPs), including regular hand washing, wearing masks
and social distancing among others in order to prevent further spread of the
virus.
He also
urged residents in the district and those working in the oil fields in the
district to seek immediate medical attention should they present with
COVID-19-like symptoms.
