The Ministry of Health, has said that two arcades in downtown Kampala have registered positive cases of COVID-19 rising the fear of more infections in the city.
While addressing the media in Kampala, minister of health ,Jane Ruth Aceng, attributed the rise of these cases to non-compliance to health guidelines by members of the public.
“Kampala has joined the hotspot districts and I want to encourage Ugandans that the direction in which this pandemic will go in this country will be determined by the population,”Aceng said.
Aceng indicated that the Kampala has registered emerging clusters of transmission in three business premises in the last one week where in all, 11 cases and 316 contacts have been identified.
She said it is important to note that all the 11 deaths so far reported in the country, 8 are from Kampala region as more so all were identified from unknown transmission line.
“Amuru has so far reported 116 cases, Kyotera 84 cases and Kampala 104 cases other districts like Tororo have reported 57 cases, Buikwe 45 cases and Namisindwa 33 cases and we are also experiencing but slow steady increase in cases,”she said.
She also ordered the temporary closure of three business premises in Kampala after employees working for these companies tested positive for COVID-19.
These companies include, Eagle Holdings, Mega industries and Toyota Uganda.”These business premises have been recommended for temporary closure following the current trend of covid19 in Kampala metropolitan area.The Ministry of health working closely with KCCA will intensify response activities to enable commemorate with the threat at hand,”she said.
She said it is possible with the phase lifting of the lockdown, the virus might have been imported into Kampala and appears to have spread among the communities.
“This signals tougher times ahead and thus much a deep need for compliance to the presidential directives ,the ministry of health standard operating procedures and the statutory instrument in place for this public health threats,”she said.
To date, cumulative number of confirmed cases of COVID19 in Uganda is 1,353 with a breakdown indicating that returnees from abroad have reached 183, contacts and alerts stand at 557, truck drivers at 574 while health workers stand at 39 cases.