The government will today decide the fate of truck drivers bringing cargo into the country since these have been the leading carriers of Coronavirus to Uganda. This fate will be decided after the Ministry of Works and Transport meets stakeholders.
Gen Katumba Wamala, the Minister of Works and Transport, on Wednesday said the ministry and other stakeholders will agree on a common position on how to handle the cargo truck drivers, especially those from neighbouring countries, who so far are the remaining biggest challenge for the country in curbing spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
“There are measures, some of them possibly very expensive and may be not very elaborate and those are some of the things we are going to investigate on Friday and come up with something practical, something within the means without injuring the economy,” Gen Wamala said in a telephone yesterday.
Currently, most of the recent confirmed cases have been truck drivers from Kenya and Tanzania.
Mr Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the senior public relations officer in the Ministry of Health said standard operating procedures have been put in place as a control measure against Covid-19 with designated areas put along travel corridors for check-up.
“We have also designated areas along the travel corridors where they have only to stop…, and get checked again by health officials, security officials and Uganda Revenue Authority officials until their final destination, that process is being handled very well,” Mr Ainebyoona said on Wednesday.
In a statement, the Ministry of Health said Friday that 11 more cargo truck drivers had tested positive, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 74. The new 11 positive cases that were registered on Thursday include; six Tanzanian truck drivers who arrived via Mutukula Border post and five Kenyan truck drivers.