Uganda registers 87pc Covid-19 recoveries, no deaths
Wednesday June 24 2020
Travellers wait for an intercity bus in Uganda's capital Kampala while adhering to social distancing measures. The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases Uganda has risen to 797 after 23 people tested positive from samples that were taken on June 22, 2020. PHOTO | BADRU KATUMBA | AFP
Uganda’s Covid-19 recoveries hit 699 on Tuesday out of the country’s confirmed total of 797 positive cases, the Ministry of Health announced.
The country on Tuesday registered 23 new cases of coronavirus patients from 2,219 tests carried out in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases to 797. The numbers do not include foreign nationals who tested positive.
Since recording its first coronavirus case in March this year, Uganda has not had any Covid-19 related death.
Weeks ago, the country’s positive cases came mostly from cargo truck drivers who arrived from neighbouring countries but recently, several clusters of community infections are being registered in border districts and inland.
The new clusters of community infections have hampered the gradual lifting of the lockdown measures that Uganda had embarked on weeks ago and is currently in phase three.
Addressing the nation on Monday night, President Yoweri Museveni, who was largely expected to lift several other restrictions like the 6.30am to 7pm curfew and a ban on use of motorcycle taxis, said that the new clusters being recorded pose a big threat if the country reopened.
“We are, therefore, entering a more dangerous phase...Previously, the problem was from the returnees from abroad, from the drivers and from those who pass through the porous borders from the neighbouring countries,” Mr Museveni said.
The president said that with the re-opening of public transport and movement of private cars, positive cases whose source of infection could not be traced were already being registered.
The phase three of lockdown allowed private vehicles to carry four occupants up from three, all of who are required to put on face masks. Public transport vehicles continue to operate at half their capacity.
Schools, places of worship and mobile markets still remain closed because they pose a difficulty in contact tracing and are high risk contamination areas.
Travel in and out of Uganda for medical reasons is barred, in principle, however the Health and Foreign Affairs ministries can allow an applicant to travel -- such travel is allowed on a case-by-case basis.