Kampala pastor, 30 followers arrested for defying Museveni directives

Police in Kampala have arrested a pastor and 30 of his followers for allegedly defying presidential directives against religious gatherings in a bid to forestall the spread of coronavirus.
President Museveni recently suspended religious gatherings for at least a month as part of his government’s measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus pandemic that has killed at least 20,599 people worldwide since it first appeared in China in December.

Pastor Rashid Mutebi of Blessed Feelings Church International located in Gobe, Kajjansi and his followers were picked on Wednesday morning after Police received information about their illegal activities at their Church, according to Kampala Metropolitan police spokesperson, Mr Patrick Onyango.
“On interrogation, the Pastor alleges that the Christians came from far and he was still looking for money to transport them to their homes. The followers were cautioned and released. The Pastor is currently detained at Kajjansi Police station,” Mr Onyango said on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Dr Henry Mwebesa, the director general, Health Services told journalists in Kampala that five people had tested positive, bringing the total of confirmed cases to 14.
Two of the confirmed cases are Chinese nationals who travelled from China recently and the rest are Ugandans.
Following the ministry's appeal to all individuals who travelled from Dubai in the past two weeks to go for testing, a total of 574 individuals have been listed countrywide.

“We have so far screened 60 travellers at Mulago National Specialized Hospital. We further direct all persons who travelled from Dubai in the past 2 weeks to come to Ward 2A at Mulago National Specialized Hospital (New Mulago) for assessment,” Dr Mwebesa said.
To date, a total of 2,661 travellers including Ugandans have been identified. 1,230 are under follow up, 764 are under institutional quarantine, while 466 are under self-quarantine.
At least 1,431 who had been identified as high risk travellers have completed their 14 days of follow up.

More than 447,030 cases of infection have been officially diagnosed in 182 countries and territories since the start of the pandemic.
The tallies, using data collected by AFP offices from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), are likely to reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections.
Many countries are now only testing cases that require hospitalisation.
Since the tally carried out Tuesday at 1900 GMT, 2,341 new deaths and 43,010 new cases have been recorded worldwide.
The countries that recorded the most new deaths in 24 hours were Spain with 738, Italy with 683 and France with 231.

Italy, which recorded its first death linked to the coronavirus at the end of February, now has 7,503 deaths with 74,386 cases.
After Italy, the most affected countries are Spain with 3,434 deaths for 47,610 cases, mainland China with 3,281 deaths (81,218 cases), Iran with 2,077 deaths (27,017 cases), and France with 1,331 deaths (25,233 cases).
Since Tuesday at 1900 GMT, Jamaica, Cameroon, Estonia and Niger have announced their first deaths linked to the virus. Guinea-Bissau, Laos, Mali, Libya, Belize, Grenada and Dominica, have announced their first cases.

At 1900 GMT Wednesday, Europe had 239,912 cases and 13,824 deaths, Asia 99,927 cases with 3,596 deaths, the United States and Canada 62,194 cases with 854 deaths, the Middle East 32,182 cases and 2,123 deaths, Latin America and the Caribbean 7,529 cases with 124 deaths, Oceania 2,656 cases and nine deaths and Africa 2,631 cases and 69 deaths.