Nine test positive for Covid-19 as cases hit 911

The Ministry of Health has announced nine (9) new Coronavirus cases in the country, two of which are foreign nationals who returned in the Country on Wednesday.

According to Dr. Henry Mwebesa who is the Director General Health Services at the ministry, the Indians are permanent residents of Uganda who arrived via an evacuation flight arranged by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to repatriate all nationals and residents stranded in India.

“They were under quarantine at the time of test,” Dr Mwebesa said.

This is however not the first batch of returnees to test positive for the virus. At least eleven (11) Ugandan returnees from Afghanistan tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this week.

The Nile Post understands that all returnees are required to undertake a PCR test for coronavirus from their country of origin and must present certificates indicating that they are negative of the virus before boarding the plane back home.

Discordance in results is a matter that is still under investigation by a number of countries.

Uganda and Kenya have suffered a similar fate recently with samples testing positive and then negative on retesting.

The Lancet laboratory in Kenya explained that the discordance “does not necessarily undermine the quality and accuracy of respective labs and tests.”

Four of the other cases were from samples taken off truck drivers while three other cases were from samples of contacts and alerts.

Uganda, according to the Ministry of Health has so far tested a cumulative total of 200,179 samples.

The Health ministry said that there are currently 197 active cases on admission with 849 Covid-19 recoveries and no death related to the virus.

“We have 172 Ugandans, 6 refugees and 19 foreigners. It is important to note that foreigners and refugees are admitted in our health facilities but are not captured in the cumulative confirmed cases,” Dr Mwesbesa said.