Africa-Press – Uganda. On Thursday morning, Ministry of Health using its twitter handle announced its latest update on Covid-19. Of the 2,675 tests carried out on June 8, at least 119 people had turned out to be positive with Covid-19.
Updates from the previous day showed that 124 people had tested positive, compared to 69 people from the day before.
According the Health minister, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng: “We have started experiencing an increase in the daily number of Covid-19 cases compared to the stable trends we observed since January. This increase is similar to the rise we faced in June 2021 when the delta variant was prevalent.”
Government scientists attribute the slight increase in reported cases of Covid-19 to waning immunity and a suspected emergence of mutated forms of Omicron named BA.4 and BA.5. The new types of Omicron are behind the fresh spikes in Covid-19 infections in southern Africa nations and are said to be more infectious and are capable of escaping immune protection from previous infection or vaccination.
As of June 7, at least 5.3 million Ugandans aged 18 years and above had been fully vaccinated with a two-dose vaccine and 5.5 million others had been fully vaccinated with a single-dose vaccine. This brings the total number of Ugandans fully vaccinated to about 11 million people, or 50 per cent of the adults.
In response to the current spike in numbers, Ministry of Health has opened vaccination sites around Kampala to try and get as many people vaccinated as possible. And since the current spike is also attributed to waning immunity and the ability of the variant to escape immune protection from vaccination, the ministry is also giving a booster dose.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), most people have strong protection against serious illness and death for at least six months after vaccination.
According to Dr Aceng, the importance and effectiveness of a booster dose has become more relevant than ever. She says we need to protect everybody, but especially the 50-years and above, and those with co-morbidities.
While government, despite its shortcomings, is trying to play its part, the rest has to be played by Ugandans individually. We have always been advised to maintain standard operating procedures (SOPs), which includes maintaining social distance, wearing of facemasks in public and constantly washing our hands.
But a stroll down the streets of urban centres across any corner of the country will show you that we threw caution to the winds. The cases of Covid-19 might be low, but we are not out of the woods yet. Let us observe SOPs and get vaccination and booster shots.
Our commitment to you
For More News And Analysis About Uganda Follow Africa-Press
