EAC agrees to deploy mobile lab test kits at borders
Saturday May 02 2020
Trucks wait to enter Uganda at Malaba, border crossing. All truck drivers crossing from Kenya must take a test for Covid-19 by Ugandan health officials. PHOTO | BRIAN ONGORO | AFP
Concerned by the need to curb the spread of the Coronavirus among long distance truck drivers in the region, plans are underway to deploy mobile lab clinics at border crossings.
An emergency bilateral meeting on Wednesday between Kenya and Uganda’s Health and EAC Affairs ministries also resolved to increase Covid-19 testing points on the Northern Corridor, the most affected route in the region.
Nine mobile laboratories were deployed to the EAC partner states as part of a $1.8 million donation by the Mobile Laboratory Project funded by the German government through Kfw.
They are equipped to also test for Ebola and Marburg, kitted with personal protective equipment but lack the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and antibody testing machine that is reliably used to test Covid-19 in humans.
“Following the increase of Covid-19 cases among truck drivers from Kenya transiting through Uganda, we have proposed four testing centres in Mombasa, Kemri-Nairobi, Eldoret and at Malaba-Uganda border,” said Dr Michael Katende, the acting head of Health in the EAC Secretariat in Arusha.
“We do not have testing facilities at the Kenya-Uganda border. Therefore, the region is planning to deploy mobile laboratory kits at Malaba on the Kenya-Uganda border to carry out testing,” he said.
Essential goods
“The PCR have arrived in Dar es Salaam and plans are underway to fit each vehicle by Monday. Kenya will collect their labs once they are fitted with PCR,” said Dr Katende.
“Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi have already received their mobile labs” said Dr Katende.
The Northern Corridor is vital for the transportation of food, medicine and other essential goods to Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.