Why Covid cases among health workers are rising
Mulago Hospital staff handling Covid-19 patients, address journalists after discharging patients last year. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- Dr Richard Idro, the president of UMA, said the country is experiencing a lot of community transmissions and some of the patients in general wards have undiagnosed Covid-19, which leaves health workers at a high risk of exposure.
Ever since Uganda confirmed its first case of the Covid-19 in March 2020, more than 3,000 health workers have been infected with the virus, according to Uganda Medical Association (UMA).
Many of these were infected during the second wave which started in May.
Dr Richard Idro, the president of UMA, said the country is experiencing a lot of community transmissions and some of the patients in general wards have undiagnosed Covid-19, which leaves health workers at a high risk of exposure.
“When patients come to health facilities, health workers spend some time with them at a very close distance assessing them. The patient may come with a fever or other conditions when underlying they have Covid while some are asymptomatic,” Dr Idro said yesterday.
He added: “The kind of protection that you have in the Covid treatment unit is not the same protection used in the other general wards. In the Covid treatment unit, people are covered from head to toe. In the other wards, health workers are only using masks so the risk of infection is much higher.”
Dr Mukuzi Muhereza, the secretary general of UMA, said the biggest problem faced by health workers is a shortage of PPEs which leaves them exposed.
He added that the health workers are also not well motivated.
“More mistakes are made when one is not properly motivated. Pay health workers and compensate the families of those who passed away. Those who died since the pandemic started have not been compensated,” Dr Muhereza said.
Dr Richard Isabirye, the secretary of the Covid-19 taskforce in Mayuge District, said the PPEs available are few.
He said a number of health workers end up with Covid-19 while in line of duty which has scared their colleagues.
Mayuge District has registered 259 Covid cases of which 17 are health workers.
“We would have identified more cases but we have few testing kits. In May and June, the district registered 83 cases,” Dr Isabirye said.
Scientists say health workers are three times more likely to get Covid-19 compared to the general population.
In a period of two weeks the country has lost 14 doctors to the pandemic.
Some health workers have blamed the increase of Covid infections among their colleagues to fatigue.
Govt reaction
Mr Emmauel Ainebyoona, the Ministry of Health spokesperson, said they attend to all orders and National Medical Stores(NMS) has all available PPEs required are available. Ms Sheila Nduhukire, the principal public relations officer of NMS, said all Covid-19 supplies have been dispatched to all districts.
