Electrician in oil camp tests positive for Coronavirus
A thirty-nine old male electrician with Tullow Oil Bugungu camp has tested positive of novel Coronavirus (Covid-19).
This was revealed by the Buliisa district health educator Dr Robert Mugabe at a time when Uganda has registered 23 new cases that brought the total number of confirmed cases to 616 from samples tested on 6th June 2020.
According Dr Mugabe, the confirmed case has no travel record of having been abroad neither was he in contact with a Covid-19 positive person.
"The case has been confined in the camp since the lockdown commenced, with no record of traveling overseas apart from only moving to the trading center to buy food," says Dr Mugabe.
The Nile Post understands that samples from around 22 workers at the Tullow Oil Bugungu camp are to be picked for the second time with the first samples picked on the 27th May this year.
Dr Mugabe says the samples picked in the first phase from these workers all tested negative though three samples where missing which where picked again leading to the first Covid-19 case in Buliisa district.
He explained that, "Only nineteen samples that where picked from the workers came back from the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) and decided to retest the three and only to get the result that one of them was positive."
Buliisa district does not have capacity to treat a covid-19 patient. The confirmed case was referred to Hoima Covid-19 treatment unit at Hoima regional referral hospital that is now treating eleven cases.
Today the Buliisa District servillance team will commence efforts to trace a total of over 50 people in the community who where in contact with the 39yr old electrician beginning with the workmates who have been further restricted from movement.
Tullow Oil recently signed an agreement to sell its entire stake at Lake Albert Development project to Total. Tullow is yet to comment on the development.
Two weeks back, SBC company spearheading the construction of the Hoima international airport that will facilitate the movement of heavy equipment into Uganda to help in the construction of the oil refinery downsized the number of its workers.
