Test, trace and treat to break Covid-19 chain 

For reasons we don’t know, government stopped tracing contacts and closed quarantine centres. 

The government preoccupation now is on treatment and vaccination as infections and death toll continue to rise. To contain the spread of the virus, government must go back to the basics and do what’s right: Test, trace and treat.

We need to approach the pandemic with integrated measures that include cohesive leadership at all levels, citizen participation, effective communication, physical distancing, vaccination, wearing of face masks, promotion of hand hygiene, and support for the health workers and supplies. 
Testing, contact tracing and treatment should be the foundations of our struggle against the pandemic. 

Government should as a matter of urgency activate district and village task forces, invest in contact tracing and study the viability of procuring a digital tracing system for Uganda.  

The situation in public and private hospitals is ominous, yet government response is ill-judged and slow. Covid-19 is killing people every day and there is a looming oxygen crisis in the country. 

Hospitals and other health centres are chock-full as the second wave sweeps through the lungs of our country. Most of the Covid-19 patients are being managed from their homes. 

Health workers are stretched as more people are getting sick. 
On Monday, June 7, Covid-19 killed 14 people, the highest single day death, and after just one day, another six passed on. 

There are those who die quietly in their homes and are not recorded. And more people are still dying. On the day six people died, 1,566 new cases were recorded out of 9,703 tests conducted. Recoveries stand at 47,760 and total death at 408. 

The positivity rate stands at 16.1 per cent with cumulative cases now at 58,515 and out of these 784 are currently fighting for their lives in ICUs. The rest are struggling at home.

To contain rapid transmission, we reiterate that aggressive testing and contact trancing must be our mainstay of Covid-19 combat strategy. Contact tracing is an essential public health tool for controlling infectious disease outbreaks, such as Covid-19. 

We believe this strategy, along with vaccination and SOPs, can break the chains of transmission through the rapid identification, isolation and clinical care of cases. 

The country is at war with the virus. We, therefore, ask government to treat Covid-19 as a national security issue, and prioritise people’s health more than anything else in the 2021/2022 Budget. 

Test, trace, and treat formula is key to South Korea’s success in the fight against coronavirus. In South Korea, nearly 90 per cent of active cases have recovered.

Transparency and civilian participation in the fight are crucial. The temporary national Covid-19 task force should convene and discuss modalities of enforcing contact tracing, isolating the sick and ensuring they get treatment.