Six districts register surge in Covid-19 cases

At least six districts have registered a resurgence in Covid-19 cases, Ministry of Health has revealed.
Dr Charles Olaro, the director of curative services at the ministry, said Gulu, Oyam, Arua, Amuru, Kitgum, and Kampala have had an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases.
“Right now, the epidemic is what we call heterogeneous. It is not homogenous that you can classify the whole country,”Dr Olaro told this newspaper in an interview yesterday.

He added: “It could move from those districts, and may be next week, we could have additional districts and later the whole country.”
 Ministry of Health statistics show that in the past one month, Gulu registered 93 Covid-19 cases, Oyam 32, Arua 33, Amuru 19, Kitgum 19, and Kampala 318.
The statistics also show that as of February 20, Kitgum District had registered one case in December, four in January and none in February, Gulu registered 44 cases in December, 25 in January and 14 in February. Oyam had five cases in December, none in January and February 20.

Dr Olaro said testing is low which could be the reason why some districts are registering more cases than the others.
“We have been doing contact tracing in the affected districts and the numbers are going up. This is good because if you look at schools for instance, you would like to know who has the disease so that you minimise spread to others,” he said.
As of yesterday, the country had 27 active cases on admission in health facilities and at least four in critical care.

Dr Olaro said in this aspect vaccination to attain herd immunity is very crucial. He added that having a resurgence plan, and drumming the need to observe standard operating procedures are being focussed on, among others. 
“That is why the president mentioned that we acquire the threshold of herd immunity and so we need to get the most vulnerable to receive the vaccine,” Dr Olaro said.
In response to the resurgence, basic actions such as tracking vigilance indicators, identifying and implementing interventions, continuous monitoring and evaluation, reporting and feedback are carried out, according to ministry of Health.

Some of the health facilities such as Masaka and Mbarara regional referral hospitals had no Covid-19 cases as of yesterday.
Asked the number of people that come for testing, Dr Nathan Onyachi, the Masaka Regional Referral Hospital director, said: “The only people who want to test are those who want to travel abroad.”
Dr Onyachi said many people are no longer observing the standard operating procedures.