Eight contacts of COVID-19 positive truck driver quarantined at Paboo SS

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Eight contacts of the Kenyan truck driver who tested positive to COVID-19 are being quarantined at Paboo Secondary School classrooms in Amuru district.

The suspects have been padlocked at the facility gazetted as an isolation centre to control them from escaping. Paboo SS is located along Gulu – Nimule – South Sudan highway in Paboo sub-county.

Dr Patrick Odong Olwedo, the District Health Officer said the contacts were isolated after they were traced by security personnel following the interception of a 27-year-old truck driver in Elegu town council on Monday.

The Kenyan national crossed into the country on April 16 through Malaba, Uganda – Kenya border post to Juba. He tested positive and had spent three days in Elegu town council.

Michael Lakony, the Amuru LCV chairperson says that the eight contacts have been added to six other suspected patients who were repatriated on April 17th from South Sudan to undergo the 14 days’ mandatory institutional quarantine at the school.

According to Lakony, one of the suspects who is a resident of Wakiso district had escaped on Sunday from the facility before his sample was taken for testing but was found and intercepted on Wednesday by security personnel.

Lakony explained that they have deployed police backed by military security personnel to guard the facility because the school is not fenced and is open to entry and exit adding feeding the isolated persons is a huge challenge to the district.

According to Lakony, the COVID-19 district taskforce resolved to lock up the suspects in classrooms to bar them from escaping and mixing with the population until they complete their quarantine period.

Samples of the suspects have already been taken to Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe for analysis.

However, Amuru COVID-19 Task Force backed by their counterparts from Gulu are tracing for more contacts of the truck driver.

******

URN