Social media sites are buzzing with fury after 100 passengers on Tuesday missed a flight due to delayed COVID tests results.
Safari Lab which conducted the tests on passengers who were supposed to fly to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is under fire for the mess.
According to reports, the incident happened when a number of passengers who were supposed to fly using Emirates flight number EK730 missed the flight after results came in only 15 minutes to the time of closing the boarding gate.
“Emirates passengers have missed their flight because Safari lab sent Covid-19 test results at 2:45pm yet Emirates closed its gate(boarding) at 3pm and they could not work on everyone in time,” one of the passengers tweeted on Tuesday evening.
The Uganda Civil Aviation Authority confirmed the incident.
“About 100 passengers who were scheduled to travel to UAE aboard Emirates flight number EK730 at 18:45hours on Tuesday missed their flight due to late arrival at Entebbe International Airport following a delay in getting their Covid PCR test results,” CAA said in a statement.
TESTING LABS
Following the outbreak of COVID19, government opened up for the private sector to support COVID19 testing at the airport and all other points of entry into Uganda.
This was a result of lack of enough capacity for government to handle all required testing to trace and manage entry of COVID cases into the country most especially the new deadly variants that are discovered every day.
It is upon this background that this COVID testing Centre was setup at Peniel Beach in Entebbe. The facility currently hosts six testing laboratories namely; Same day lab , Case medical , test and fly, city medicals safari lab and Medipal lab.
The main objective for these COVID testing services is to protect the country form the many upcoming variants of COVID-19.
