Covid-19: How government selected six labs for testing travellers

The Ministry of Health has said the private laboratories, which will implement mandatory Covid-19 testing for all incoming travellers, were selected based on their capacity to install equipment at Entebbe and do quality tests.

Currently, six private labs have installed equipment at Penial Beach Hotel in Entebbe to test travellers entering the country through Entebbe International Airport. They include Test and Fly, Case Hospital, Medipal, Safari Lab, Same Day Lab and City Medical lab. But about 12 private labs have been accredited by the Ministry of Health to do Covid-19 testing in the country.

While touring the Covid-19 testing facilities at Penial Beach Hotel in Entebbe on Monday, the MPs on Parliament’s Health Committee questioned the way the labs were selected, the latter’s capacity to provide Covid-19 tests with unwavering quality and ensure short turnaround time.

The lawmakers, however, emphasised the need to quicken the implementation of mandatory testing for all incoming travellers to prevent further importation of deadly variants of Covid-19 that could plunge the country into more lockdowns.

The implementation was supposed to start on September 3, but was postponed last Thursday for two weeks, by an inter-ministerial team chaired by Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja over capacity and cost issues, among others.

During the tour on Monday, Mubende Woman MP Hope Grania Nakazibwe, who is a member of the health committee, asked Ministry of Health officials to explain how they selected the six labs.

“How did you zero down to the testing partners that we have among the labs in the country? People out there keep on complaining that the way they choose the labs is still wanting,” she enquired.

Ministry speaks out

But Mr Ibrahim Mugerwa, an official from the ministry’s Department of Laboratory and Diagnostic Services said the selection process was very transparent.

“The minister [Dr Jane Ruth Aceng] invited all the testing labs that have been accredited to do Covid-19 and requested that the labs with capacity should come and set up equipment for testing [travellers] here [at Penial Beach Hotel] and those that had capacity came up and installed their equipment,” he said.

“Our role here was to ensure that the labs have capacity to do the required tests and of quality,” he added. The recommended equipment is supposed to give out results in a maximum of 90 minutes to minimise delays, according to the ministry.

Dr Charles Ayume (Koboko Municipality), the head of Parliament’s Health Committee, said their assessment determined that the labs can test up to 25,000 samples per day. The airport currently receives about 1,300 incoming travellers each day.

“This site [Penial Beach Hotel] was identified by a joint team of the Ministry of Health and World Health Organisation as a testing site. The ministry does [here is] quality assurance, supervision and data management among others,” he said. The private labs are paying for rent, according to the ,inistry.

Appeal by MPs

Dr Ayume said there is a need to bring down the turnaround time from 4 hours to under 2 hours to avoid irritating travellers who have endured hours on the plane.

Like Dr Ayume, Mr Isaac Otim, the MP for Padiere, supported the idea of mandatory Covid-19 testing for all travellers entering the country despite their vaccination and previous test results status. But Mr Otim said the cost should be reduced from $65 (about Shs229,000) to $40 (about Shs140,000).

Some tour operators and frequent international travellers were opposing the idea of mandatory testing over the issue of cost and delays at testing sites, which they said would cause further reduction in the number of people coming into the country due to increased financial burden and irritation to travellers.

Dr Ayume said although Entebbe airport is the biggest concern when it comes to importation of deadly variants, there is a need to strengthen testing at all border points. Dr Henry Kyobe, the National Covid-19 Incident Manager, said earlier that they are working hard to improve testing at 53 border points.

The Ministry of Health on Monday said up to 697 cases of Covid-19 infections have been detected among international travellers entering through Entebbe airport and that the delta variant was the dominant virus detected.

Delta variant is highly transmissible and is associated with severe disease and a high death rate, according to available scientific information.

Dr Richard Mugahi, the assistant commissioner for health services at the ministry, said the tests were done between May 10 and August 30 on 18,907 samples from travellers entering the country. The government is currently testing about 10 per cent of travellers arriving in through the airport, meaning the exact number of infected travellers entering the country could be higher.

He said most of the cases were coming from Kenya, United Arab Emirates, South Sudan, Tanzania and South Africa.

Dr Mugahi revealed that although other travellers who test positive and are asymptomatic are isolated and treated by the ministry case management team in hotel based centres in Entebbe, VIPs such as ambassadors are allowed to go home and self-isolate.

The travellers pay for accommodation in hotels but they are evacuated to the designated treatment centres when they become sick, according to the ministry. Dr Mugahi said the hotels where travellers are isolated were chosen by the Association of Hotel Owners.

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