COVID-19: Health officials intercept body from Dubai

Uganda COVID-19 stats

✳ 14,761 tested
✳ 61 confirmed cases
✳ 38 recoveries
✳ 23 active cases
✳ 0 deaths

Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Health (MOH) surveillance team on Tuesday intercepted an A-Plus van heading to Kayunga with a body flown in from Qatar.

Ministry of Health Permanent secretary Diana Atwine confirmed the incident, saying their experts suspected that the Ugandan, who reportedly died of acute respiratory failure, was in fact a victim of COVID-19.

Health officials took over and supervised the burial in Kayunga in eastern Uganda, and the eight who came into contact with the body they picked from Entebbe Airport –  two relatives and six A-Plus workers – have been quarantined.

Another body that arrived from Dubai the same day, was reportedly an accident victim.

Among the guidelines released by President Yoweri Museveni at the weekend were that no body of a person who has died of COVID-19 should be flown back to Uganda, for health safety reasons.

“Today our team intercepted eight people who were taking the body for burial in Kayunga. The body arrived by cargo plane from out of Uganda .The eight are quarantined. Be reminded that bodies of Covid infected will not be allowed in the country,” Atwine stated.

“Acute respiratory failure is normally end stage of severe Covid 19 infection and it is one of the common cause of death of Covid patients Any highly infectious body like Covid or ebola, burial must be handled by health experts to avoid infection spreading,” she added.

Meanwhile, Uganda Tuesday also announced one new confirmed case of Coronavirus – 32 year old Kenyan truck driver who arrived from Kenya at Malaba border.

Uganda has now revised her COVID-19 statistics to include the five foreign truck drivers from Kenya and Tanzania who were in the past week found to be positive. This, officials said, was so that the country complies with International Health Regulations (IHR) rules.

Uganda previously only tallied cases being treated in Uganda, as the truck drivers were being repatriated.

Before Tuesday, the last truck driver to test positive was intercepted in Elegu town council border town in Amuru district. The truck driver crossed into Uganda on April 16 through Malaba border en route to the South Sudan capital Juba.

A team of police backed Amuru COVID-19 Task Force and health workers searched for the driver in Elegu town council only to realise that his truck was being driven by another person.

The Aswa River Region Police Spokesperson, Patrick Jimmy Okema, says the team persisted and searched for the driver until 1 pm when he was found at BLD parking yard in Elegu.

His truck is still in Melekiya in South Sudan. The driver was still isolated at Elegu border post pending evacuation to Gulu Regional Referral Hospital.

As a new measure adopted to further combat the spread of COVID-19 at Uganda’s borders, all truck drivers entering Uganda are required to present themselves to the Ministry of Health officials for testing. They are however allowed to drive on into Uganda until their results are confirmed, and tracked from where they have reached.

According to local authorities, most truck drivers handover their trucks to other drivers to cross into South Sudan upon arrival in Elegu border town.

Preliminary findings show that the confirmed Kenyan case had spent three days at the border.

Health experts backed by security have stated tracing for the contacts and place them under the 14 days mandatory quarantine as safeguard against the virus. Dr Patrick Olwedo Odong, the Amuru District Health Officer told URN on Monday evening that the district is financially constrained to respond to reported cases of COVID-19 pandemic.