Police in Luweero has intercepted a coronavirus (COVID-19) positive truck driver and his female passenger. The driver was on his way to Elegu border in Amuru district.
The 28-year-old Ugandan truck driver was intercepted at a roadblock mounted by police near Don petrol station in Luweero town. Abraham Tukundane, the Luweero district police commander explains that the truck driver was tested for COVID-19 at Mutukula border on the way from Tanzania on Wednesday and was allowed to proceed to South Sudan via Elegu border as authorities waited for his results.
Tukundane adds that when the results were found positive, officials from the ministry of Health alerted police along the highway and he was intercepted at the roadblock at around 10 pm on Thursday night.
Tukundane adds that the truck driver was found with of a 27-year old woman whom he allegedly picked from Kibuli in Kampala city. The police patrol vehicle led the duo to Luweero weighbridge.
Doctor Innocent Nkonwa, the Luweero district health officer says that he immediately alerted Dr Atek Kagirita, the COVID-19 incident commander in the Health ministry who immediately sent in an ambulance that picked the driver and transferred him to an isolation facility at Mulago hospital for treatment.
Nkonwa adds that the woman was picked today morning and transferred to a quarantine centre in Kampala. He said that the district is also following up a family in Wobulenzi town belonging to another truck driver who tested positive and was intercepted in Gulu.
By the time of compiling the story, the Luweero district surveillance team was still interviewing the family before a decision to quarantine them is taken. The ministry of Health gazetted Bombo military hospital as a treatment centre for all COVID-19 patients from Greater Luweero districts. So far no person has tested positive in the region and none is yet admitted at Bombo military hospital.
Uganda has so far registered 160 confirmed cases of COVID-19 cases in the country has risen to 160 after 21 people tested positive on Thursday.
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