Over 120 people have been isolated and face quarantine in different parts of Uganda after they were linked to the deadly coronavirus, a Ministry of Health official has disclosed.
Emmanuel Ainbyoona, the ministry’s spokesperson said that the people were not quarantined because they showed no symptoms but were just asked to self-isolate for two weeks to avoid any incidents.
“We have a thermal scanner and the moment one arrives into immigration, it scans your temperature and if it is raised, you are monitored and sometimes isolated within your place of residence,” Ainebyoona said.
Meanwhile, about 71 Ugandan students are still stranded in Wuhan, Hubei province with the government saying that it has no plans of evacuating them despite their calls of distress asking to be evacuated, citing that the country might not have resources to treat and quarantine them in case they had the virus.
The Government spokesperson in a tweet dated February 6 advised the students in Wuhan to stay calm, saying; “Ugandans in #Wuhan have been advised by #UGGovt@KagutaMuseveni to remain there and observe all the precautionary measures placed by the #ChineseGovt. @UgandaMediaCent@lindahNabusayi“
The Chinese province of Hubei recorded its ‘deadliest day’ since the outbreak of the coronavirus with 242 deaths and 14,840 cases diagnosed with the virus on Wednesday, February 12, 2020.
According to reports from China, the number of new cases was stabilizing and had stalled before yesterday’s increase.
The increase has now pushed the total death toll to 1,350 and over 60,000 cases in total inside mainland China as of Thursday, February 13, 2020 morning.
135 deaths of the total of 242 were regarded as ‘clinically diagnosed,’ and in Hubei alone (the epicenter of the virus), 48,206 infections have been confirmed.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organisation announced that ‘COVID-19’ will be the official name of the deadly virus, saying that it represented a ‘very grave threat’ for the world but there was a ‘realistic chance’ of stopping it.
“We now have a name for the disease and its COVID-19,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom told reporters in Geneva.