314b Out 990b So Far Given to Health Ministry to Fight Covid19, Testing Kits Still a Challenge

Minister of Health Dr Jane Ruth Aceng has today Thursday revealed that out Shs 990 billion needed by the Ministry of Health to fight COVID-19, only 314 has been disbursed by Government.

“To date, the Government of Uganda has mobilized and provided 314 billion shillings to the Ministry of Health to handle requirements for COVID-19. The total budget required for this response (COVID-19 response) for a period of 6 months is 990 billion; to support the COVID response,” she said

In the meantime, the minister says there’s a growing concern over the shortage of testing kits.

“We have made a projection of 3.2 million tests that will be required in the event of a surge of cases. However, access to test kits remain a challenge as there is a global shortage and release to National Governments is being rationed through the United Nations consortium,” said Aceng.

She added that the Government and partners have placed several orders to make the test kits available in the medium and long term but can only rely on how fast the UN consortium can make the kits available.

“In the interim, 360,000 tests have been ordered for and another order is in the process.”

Aceng also announced that her Ministry had boosted the sample transport network with additional cars to allow rapid transportation of COVID-19 samples to the testing labs.

“We are also implementing a transport system to allow us easily trace the samples and the results,” she added.

Quarantine

Aceng said her Ministry continues to implement institutional quarantine for 2 weeks for contacts of confirmed cases.

“All individuals entering Uganda through the porous borders and currently, 40 districts plus Kampala have institutional quarantine sites with a total of 1,100 residents as of 13th May 2020.”

She added that food and non-food items were sent to each of the 32 quarantine centres and they include 50 mattresses, 50 blankets and 50 pairs of bedsheets, soaps, sanitizers among others.

Communities At The Borders

In light of the reported sustained and diffused transmission across the southern border of the country and the reported cases of Ugandans and the refugees moving to and from the border, the Ministry of Health she said intends to take intensified active surveillance, community based surveillance, risk communication and Community engagement drive in the 6 districts if Isingiro, Ntungamo Kyotera, Rakai, Masaka and Kalangala to create an epidemiological buffer zone.

The intension of the epidemiological buffer zone between Uganda and neighbouring countries is to actively engage the community through the village Health Teams.

“This is to increase awareness, reporting of illegal crossings and identification alert cases, suspect cases and link them to District Health systems for epidemiological investigations and testing for COVID-19.”

Given the increasing cases of truck drivers identified from Elegu border in the past few weeks, the Ministry is conducting risk assessment on the northern border to initiate a similar Community based approach of case identification and linking to the health system.