Covid-19: Uganda mulls second lockdown amid second wave
Uganda police officers and members of the Local Defence Unit (LDU), a paramilitary force composed of civilians, patrol during the curfew after 7pm in Kampala, Uganda, on April, 29, 2020.
What you need to know:
- Only 577, 036 people have so far been vaccinated with a total of 1,100,350 virus tests conducted since March last year.
Uganda's Ministry of Health on Saturday reported 700 new Covid-19 infections and one more death as the government pondered a second lockdown as a radical measure against the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic.
The ministry said 600 of the new patients had been in contact with infected people and that Kampala accounted for 441 of the cases, Wakiso 75, Gulu 52, Luwero 29, Nakasongola 23 and Tororo 11.
Mbarara recorded 12 infections, Masindi 11, Kiboga 10, Masaka seven, Lira four, Mpigi, Busia and Kabarole three each, Yumbe, Kalungu,Namisindwatwo and Jinja two each, and Arua, Gomba, Maracha, Buikwe, Hoima and Paliisa one each.
At least two truck drivers tested positive for the virus at the Mutukula and Malaba border posts.
National tallies
By Saturday, Uganda had recorded 45,931 cases and 362 deaths since the pandemic first struck the country in March 2020.
Only 577,036 people had been vaccinated while at least 1,100,350 tests had been conducted.
The positivity rate was 14.3 per cent whereas the number of active cases was 364, with all the patients admitted to hospital, according to the ministry.
The ministry officials further said 43,401 people had recovered.
Hospitals full
The ministry’s statement came just hours before President Yoweri Museveni’s address regarding the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Mulago National Referral Hospital and other facilities across the country were packed.
The country’s heath officials said more contagious variants of the virus, especially from India, Nigeria, UK and South Africa, were partly to blame for the accelerating spread.
Critics, however, say the government relaxed after the January polls and that many citizens had not been vaccinated.
The country's positivity rate was1.5 per cent in April.
