Africa-Press – Uganda. Infections are reported to increasing in some countries, among them Hungary, and Prime Minister Victor Orban blamed the upsurge on the new variant of coronavirus first detected in the UK, Reuters news agency reported on February 12, 2021.
Covid-19 cases and hospital admissions in the country have sharply declined, contrary to predictions by scientists that campaigns for the January 2021 elections would accelerate the spread of the pandemic.
The fears of increased infections due to high political activity and a modelling by experts at the Ministry of Health, prompted the Electoral Commission (EC) on December 26, 2020, to ban campaigns in sixteen districts, citing coronavirus red flag raised by scientists.However, the Health ministry, between February 1 and 16, registered 496 new Covid-19 cases, an 87 per cent drop from the 3,820 cases reported within a similar period between November 1 and 16, the peak of the pandemic.
The reduction in reported infections has correspondingly translated into declining hospital admissions of Covid-19 patients, according to surveys by this newspaper.Admission of Covid-19 patients has reduced by 30 per cent to 100 per cent for both Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and High Dependency Unit (HDUs), records at ten hospitals including Mulago National Referral Hospital show.The directors of the hospitals, Health ministry officials, and independent experts, in interviews with this newspaper between Wednesday and yesterday, offered varying explanations for the decline in Covid-19 cases. Whereas the Health minister, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, attributes the decline to the normal trend of a pandemic, Dr Nathan Onyaci, the director of Masaka Hospital, said people could have developed natural immunity to coronavirus.Dr Aceng said the country reached the peak of the pandemic between November 2020 and early January 2021 and that this “represented the close of the first wave of the pandemic.”“It is important, first to note that this phenomenon, characterising peaking of an epidemic, is not unique to Uganda and that our scientists accurately predicted its occurrence after January 2021. Regardless of the reliability of the biological and social explanations, it is important that Ugandans appreciate that the pandemic comes in waves,” the minister noted in a February 11 statement, her 16th address on the pandemic.
She added: “The falling numbers, therefore, represent a punctuation consistent with emergence of what we shall consider as the second wave. This may initially occur as isolated surges in different communities and populations groups, only to later merge into another singular wave, nationally, Uganda, just like other countries globally, is therefore not yet safe.”
However, Dr Onyaci said: “People have not been wearing masks. So probably, the whole population is becoming (infected and) immune (to the virus). They (probably) got infected massively without many of them noticing since we have a youthful population. Probably, we are beginning to have herd immunity.”Dr Richard Lukandwa, the director of Medipal, a private facility in Kampala which is treating Covid-19, said the decline in infections could have been caused by weather changes.“It might be the weather because recent evidence shows that if the coronavirus is in direct sunlight, it stays for only eight minutes and we have been in the warm weather,” he said.
On Monday, World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that globally, cases had reduced from “five million in the week of January 4 to 2.6 million cases in the week starting February 8.”However, in Uganda, the total number of Covid-19 tests being done daily has also declined. The Ministry of Health statistics indicate that a total of 41,861 tests were done between November 1 and 16, 2020 almost twice the 28,718 samples tested between February 1 and 16, 2021.
Dr Charles Olaro, the director of Clinical Services (Curative) at the Ministry of Health, admitted to this newspaper two weeks ago that testing capacity in the country had declined. But he did not give any reason.“Before we went for elections, we were testing more than 4,000 or 3,000 (samples per day). But now we are testing around 2,000 samples (per day),” he said.Neither Dr Susan Nabadda, the commissioner of laboratory and diagnostic services, nor Dr Henry Mwebesa, the director general of health services, could be reached for comments by press time.
Covid-19 admissions
Scientists had predicted an upsurge in Covid-19 infections, admissions and deaths due to widespread violation of preventive measures during the just concluded elections. Hospital directors attributed the steep drop in admissions to waning Covid-19 infections and said fewer patients are developing severe Covid-19 illness.
Dr Rosemary Byanyima, the deputy director of Mulago National Referral Hospital, said they registered a 90 per cent decline in Covid-19 admission in the period under review.“We used to admit 10 patients per day, but now we admit one patient per day. We have 30 patients who are currently admitted. (But) we have only one patient in ICU,” she told this newspaper, adding that these days they have an average of five patients in ICU.
Early in January, some care-takers told this newspaper that they either got frustrated or lost their patients after being bounced from the hospital due to lack of space in the ICU amid an overwhelming number of Covid-19 cases. Asked to explain the surprising decline, Dr Byanyima said: “I don’t know. This disease is still very mysterious, but we stay on alert and encourage people to keep observing the preventive measures. Because we see neighbouring countries like Rwanda having another lockdown.”
She also attributed the decline in hospital admission for Covid-19 to the introduction of the home-based care for patients with mild to moderate illnesses as opposed to the previous practice of admitting all for treatment at hospitals. The decline in Covid-19 admission was also reported by Entebbe Grade B Hospital, one of the major treatment centres in the country.Dr Moses Muwanga, the hospital director, said they have 18 patients who are currently admitted. This is several times lower than the 75 patients that were admitted there last November.
In Masaka, the regional referral hospital has 2 Coronavirus patients in admission, down from 22 patients back in in November.Gulu Hospital in northern Uganda had 10 Covid-19 patients in admission in November, but it currently has one patient.The decline in Covid-19 admission also means government spending has come down.The Information minister, Ms Judith Nabakooba, said last year that government was spending Shs22 million on a coronavirus patient at a public hospital for the whole duration of treatment, upwards of a fortnight.
Asked about the decline, Dr William Worodria, a senior consultant and expert in pulmonology and clinical research, who headed the National Covid-19 Case Management Team for more than six months from last March, yesterday said: “It (decline in Covid-19 cases) seems to be a global trend. Therefore, there is no scientific fact advanced that explains it fully. Even where the vaccine is rolled out, it cannot be attributed to it. Whatever explanation would be purely speculative.”
