Health ministry to conduct fresh COVID-19 community survey

Kampala, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT |  The Ministry of Health is planning to carry out another community survey to ascertain where COVID-19 undetected cases in the country might be.

This comes after pockets of positive cases were detected in different parts of the country with new community cases reported in parts of Jinja, Kampala, Kyotera, Amuru and Entebbe. To date, 770 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the country.

The need for a survey comes less than a month after the initial assessment which found that there were no cases of community transmissions in the country. Findings from the Rapid Community Assessment found that the possibility of community transmissions in the country stood at 0.003 per cent.

A total of over 23,000 people were tested for  COVID-19 as part of the assessment which targeted people in 50 border districts. High-risk groups such as taxi drivers, LDUs, security personnel, religious leaders, health workers and people in fishing communities were tested.

While presenting the health ministry’s expenditure of COVID-19 monies today, the permanent secretary, Dr Diana Atwine said that the new survey is needed to try and stop the further spread of the disease within communities.

“We want to carry out another community survey because we have begun getting pockets of positive cases. We want to know where these cases are,” Dr Atwine said.

According to Dr Atwine, 40,000 tests kits are needed for the survey to be carried out. Details of when and where the survey will be carried out have not yet been availed. In an earlier interview with URN, Atwine said that the findings of the study were well representative of the COVID-19 situation in the country. At the time of the survey, the country was still under lockdown.

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URN