Government explains drop in Covid-19 positive cases

This is against the projection of scientists and the Health Ministry that election activities such as campaign rallies coupled with widespread violation of Covid-19 measures would lead to increase in the infections.

The professionals in government laboratories told Daily Monitor they are majorly testing travellers and fulfilling periodic testing of frontline health workers.

“The samples that are coming from the communities are few. And of the few samples from the communities, the Covid-19 positivity rates are very high,” one of the senior laboratory professionals, who preferred to remain anonymous, said at the weekend. 

The  source, who is testing at one of the border points, said Covid-19 infections are higher but there is limited tracing of contacts of Covid-19 patients.

This resonates with last week report by the Advocacy Coalition for Development and Environment, which revealed that 70 per cent of people in communities have no access to Covid-19 services and confirmed poor performance of the Covid-19 district taskforces. 

The assessment report titled: “The performance of the Covid-19 district taskforces in Uganda” indicates that some leaders of the taskforces told researchers that the government stopped funding their activities in June.  

The taskforces were involved in management, contact tracing, health promotion, resource mobilisation and enforcement of control measures, as well as delivery of basic services such as distribution of facemasks.

Mr Moses Dumba, who was leading the Kamuli District taskforce, said the activities such as contact tracing are becoming hard because of politicisation of Covid-19 and the poor state of roads.

An analysis of the reports from Health ministry show a great decline in testing. A total of 85,601 Covid-19 samples have been tested in January, compared to 118,105 samples that were tested in December last year, according to the ministry’s statistics. 

Testing is important in determining whether someone is infected so that they are isolated to curb the spread of Covid-19. It also helps the Health ministry tell the incidence of the infections for purposes of evidence-based planning.  
Dr Charles Olaro, the director of clinical services (curative) at the ministry, said Covid-19 infections are high. 

“….testing capacity declined. Before we went for elections, we were testing more than 4,000 or 3,000 [samples per day]. But now we are testing around 2,000 samples [per day]. The positivity rate is high,” he said.

Prof Pontiano Kaleebu, the director of Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), last week  said the interest of people to test for Covid-19 had declined. 

He attributed this to the shutdown of the Internet that had affected transmission of the test results to hospitals and to people. 

Internet effects
“The results are sent by email and to people’s phones through WhatsApp. During the time of Christmas and the time of elections, we got fewer people coming for testing. We saw the numbers decline. And then when the Internet was cut off, it caused more effects,” Prof Kaleebu said.

Neither Dr Olaro nor Prof Kaleebu, were clear on whether there is a problem of shortage of testing kits in the country. 
Dr Susan Nabadda, the commissioner of laboratory and diagnostic services, could not be reached by press time to comment about the issue of testing kits. 
 
 
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