AfricaPress-Tanzania: Kenya top East Africa with Coronavirus cases, as regional member states are trying hard to cope with the new reality.
As of yesterday, a total of 142 people in Kenya had contracted the deadly virus, more than in any of the remaining five partner states.
Kenya has recorded more victims than any other country in the region, with four Covid-19 four reported as of Monday morning.
The tally comes few days after a team of scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicted that East African region will report at least 10,000 Covid-19 cases by early next month.
Following closely is Rwanda, with 104 cases, with the country forced to extend its lockdown for 15 more days to curb the spread of coronavirus.
In East Africa, Rwanda and Uganda are the only countries that have enforced countrywide lockdowns.
Uganda comes third with 52 cases even as President Yoweri Museveni issued a directive of introducing a curfew to be observed for two weeks as the country struggles to put the spread of the coronavirus at bay.
Tanzania which has so far registered one Covid-19 death last week, had of yesterday recorded 22 people infected with the deadly virus.
Drastic measures introduced by the government has seen 289 people completing a 14-day mandatory quarantine and united with their families.
Official statistics by the Health Ministry indicated that a total of 146 people were still under the mandatory two-week quarantine.
Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children Minister Ms Ummy Mwalimu had at the weekend announced the ‘conversion’ of University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) hostels, popularly as ‘Magufuli hostels’ into quarantine facilities for travellers arriving into the country from Coronavirus-hit countries.
“The idea is to ensure that we control movements of the travellers…to ensure that Tanzanians are protected from the deadly virus, we’ve decided to bring all travellers to one area which will be under guard day and night,” said the minister.
For their part, Burundi and South Sudan, which had zero cases by last week, had both registered four cases.
In his letter to the EAC Partner States Permanent Secretaries dated March 16, EAC Secretary General Ambassador Liberat Mfumukeko called for the suspension of all EAC meetings.
“All EAC meetings for all Organs, Institutions and Project Implementation Units are suspended until further notice. We are also suspending all rental and use of EAC facilities. Organisers of meetings will use Video Conferencing or other available virtual facilities as much as possible,” he said.
The EAC Secretariat has also taken measures to protect its staff from infection by providing key information about the virus, provision of hand sanitisers in the Secretariat, and cancellation of all non-essential international or local travel.
Where travel is unavoidable, EAC staff have been advised to strictly adhere to quarantine measures required by the respective Partner States’ national authorities upon return as guided by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
