The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The number of Ugandans who are still receiving treatment for COVID-19 has risen to 146, after 13 new cases were registered yesterday.
According to results released by the ministry of health this morning, the 13 new cases were part of 1,812 samples that were tested yesterday.
Five are truck drivers who entered through the Malaba, Mutukula and Goli points of entry, while seven are contacts to previous confirmed cases while one is an alert from Kampala.
With an increase in deaths and community cases, the health epidemiologists on the COVID-19 ministerial scientific taskforce now want government to concentrate testing in communities.
Dr. Misaki Wayengera, an epidemiologist and the head of the COVID-19 ministerial committee says that with deaths being reported in communities, government needs to change the focus of testing.
“We have been concentrating most of our testing on truck drivers but we need to move to other groups now. We need to move our testing to the community because we have cases like those who have succumbed to the disease that could be tested or even admitted early on time. This shows us that we need to shift our testing strategy,” says Dr. Wayengera.
” We need to focus more on testing in the communities because that is where the problem is now. Truck drivers are nolonger our biggest threat,” says Dr. Monica Musenero, an epidemiologist and also a senior presidential advisor.
Last week, the health ministry launched the second rapid assessment survey that is supposed to gauge the extent to which community transmission has spread in the country.
While epidemiologists are hopeful that the assessment will help guide the direction testing will take, previous assessments carried out showed that there were no community transmissions in the country.
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