Sober heads need to start on a programme to steadily reduce the boda bodas, since the desperate conditions that led to their rise — fewer vehicles and bad roads — are disappearing.
With the improving road surfaces, the state needs to make increase in the mass conveyance means of transport a priority.
December 1 was World Aids Day and at least a few Ugandans remembered it. A few articles ran in the newspapers and a couple of minutes by the broadcasters were devoted to the epidemic that claims some 57 lives in the country every single day.
But Ugandans simply got tired of worrying about the disease that even shares of the company that manufactures the antiretroviral medicines in the country posted the weakest performance on the Kampala capital market in the weak.
Its management did an e-conference to convince angry shareholders that things will get better.
Just one of the reasons World Aids Day was largely forgotten is because of the new killer on the block — coronavirus. But though it is coming to a year since Covid-19 struck, it is yet to manage killing an average of one person per day.
Maybe now that caution has largely been relaxed, the average Covid-19 deaths may reach a person per day in coming months.
So Uganda’s second biggest killer remains motherhood. Though we are keeping our head deep in the sand by holding on to the old statistic of 16 maternal deaths per day in the country, this is an old figure based from 2016 and circumstantial evidence indicates that things got worse since, not better.
When the next figures are released, helped by the Covid-19 lockdown that sparked a teenage pregnancy epidemic, we are bound to post worse results.
Our third killer place is now being contested between Malaria and boda boda motorbike. Quoting figures for these two can invite sneers different from different quarters as the statistics involved are quite elastic, depending on the sources and interpretations of the cause of death.
Scientists may be precise about causes but not politicians, economists and of course lawyers. Although there certainly has been a significant decline of malaria deaths in recent years due to preventive interventions coupled with more effective and affordable treatment, death can be caused by malaria because of another debilitation condition it found in the patient.
The indeterminate nature of boda boda statistics stems from the fact that deaths counted in Uganda are usually of those who die immediately the bike crashes or soon after reaching hospital.
Long story short, though both Malaria and boda boda are ‘only’ killing us in single digits per day, even if it is about or more than five, they are still killing more people than Covid-19 for now. So what should be done to reduce the preventable deaths?
For HIV/Aids it seems little can be done differently. There was a survey that found that even testing doesn’t cause preventive behavioural change – only positive test results do.
As for pregnancy/maternal deaths, increasing ante-natal care is being promoted but still many women (especially girls) start the visits well after the pregnancy is no longer easy to hide.
So it seems Uganda is better off going for the low-hanging fruits of preventable deaths; these being boda boda and Malaria.
For Malaria, it has been raining mosquito nets for a couple of years. Even during lockdown, government and its partners were delivering the nets free to all corners of the country.
The remaining attainable, low hanging fruit of our mass killers to take by the horns is boda boda.
The reliance on boda bodas for public transport needs to be reduced. Their number is like the population of Nigeria — no single agency knows it for sure. Police, Revenue Authority, Transport Licensing — all have different figures, with wide variations. Because boda boda employ between half a million and a million potentially dangerous young men, it is unlikely for any political leader to ban them fast enough.
Instead the politicians court them and try to make it easier for them to acquire the bikes. But sober heads need to start on a programme to steadily reduce the boda bodas, since the desperate conditions that led to their rise — fewer vehicles and bad roads — are disappearing.
Incidentally, the million or so boda boda are not just killing people by crashing. They are also major polluters as they release their exhausts into the air that we breathe. So even if you don’t ride on one, boda boda is slowly killing you.
With the improving road surfaces, the state needs to make increase in the mass conveyance means of transport a priority. For now, even if you survive pregnancy, Malaria, Covid or Aids, boda boda will get you.
Joachim Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. E-mail:[email protected]
