REPORT: 18, 878 Ugandans likely to catch COVID-19, 566 face death

By Francis Otucu

Without any lockdown or social distancing measures, the COVID-19 pandemic is most likely going to get out of hand.

So far, according to the modelling carried out by the Ministry of Health, Uganda will have 18, 878 cases (at a 3% fatality rate, 566.34 deaths) by April 31, 2020.

“This is unbearable for our already constrained health system; and something had to be done, immediately,” Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng said in a 19 paged report released Thursday morning.  

Dr. Aceng was justifying the current country’s lockdown.

In the next 14 days, she said government is expected to rapidly find and test suspected cases, test all those under quarantine, to weed out asymptomatic cases and institute more strict quarantine measures and strengthen the available systems to ensure that people who suddenly manifest symptoms are picked up and well managed, so as to improve outcomes and minimize deaths.  

To achieve this, government has beefed up pandemic response team with specialist doctors from the Uganda People’s Defense Force Directorate of Medical Services. Government is also expected to hire  220 medics of different categories to support the response both at the center and in the districts.

As of April 2, 2020; 2, 661 travellers had been identified. They are either in self-isolation or institutional quarantine.

1, 015 high risk travelers are under institutional quarantine.

660 contacts to the 33 confirmed cases have been listed and are being followed up.

By press time, Uganda had 44 confirmed cases. They are being looked after at Entebbe Grade B hospital, Mulago National Specialized Hospital, Adjumani and Hoima hospitals.

“All patients presented with mild symptoms are on treatment and improving,” Aceng said.

By 1pm Thursday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide stood at 900, 000.