Coronavirus: Uganda’s recovery cases surpass active cases as nine are discharged

The total number of people who have recovered from the COVID-19 has now surpassed the number of the total active cases in Uganda. This is after nine more people were discharged on Monday.

The nine, according to information from the Ministry of Health, include five Watoto choir members, three of their caretakers and one boda boda cyclist who had previously tested positive.

According to Emmanuel Ainebyoona, a senior public relations officer at the Ministry of Health, a patient is only discharged after testing negative twice so that the healthy workers can be sure that he/she is completely free of the Coronavirus.

“Families and communities have to also be prepared to receive them (the patients) and psychological team goes down to talk to them,” Ainebyoona said.

The discharge now brings the total recovered cases to 37 while the active cases are now at 18 with a national cumulative total of confirmed cases still at 55. Uganda according to the Ministry of Health has not recorded any death related to COVID-19.

With the country now counting day six of the twenty-one extended coronavirus lockdown, Minister of Health Dr Jane Ruth Aceng in her speech on Saturday attributed the progress to the early response from government to combat the virus.

Aceng said that if the lockdown had not been implemented swiftly, the situation might have gone out of hand and Uganda would have recorded many cases and possible deaths, as the situation is in many other countries.

“When the numbers of exposed and infected individuals grow so fast, the stress on the system is huge and the system cannot cope with it,” Aceng said.

Uganda will on April 21 have made a month since the first case was confirmed on March 21, 2020.