Uganda Registers First Covid-19 Death Case

Uganda has registered its first Covid-19 death four months after the epidemic broke out in the country.

The victim is a 34-year-old woman who died at Joy Hospice Center in Mbale City on Wednesday.

Dr. Joyce Moriku Kaducu, the Primary Health Care Minister, said the results from the samples taken from the deceased tested positive for Covid-19.

"Right now we are trying to confirm whether she had any other health-related conditions that might have led to her death. But for now, she tested positive for the disease," Kaducu said.

On Wednesday, URN (Uganda Radio Network) published a story indicating that the deceased had been rushed to Joy Hospice Center in Mbale from Namisindwa district with Covid19 like symptoms.

The deceased was a Kenyan national but was married to a Ugandan. Her death prompted the Mbale District Covid19 taskforce to cordon off Joy Hospice Center and quarantine 16 health workers and more than 30 other people who are believed to have had contact with the deceased.

On Thursday morning, Isaac Wepondi, the Acting Medical Officer Mbale Municipal Council, who is also the Covid19 Quarantine Center manager, told URN that they were tracing for all the people who had left the health center.

“We are now going to look to for those people who were at Joy Hospice Center at the time the deceased was there but left such that they are also quarantined,” Wepondi said.

Wepondi said all the patients who were in the health center will not be allowed to leave until they complete the fourteen days mandatory quarantine period.

According to the World Health Organisation-WHO, over 15,000 people have succumbed to Covid19 on the African continent. Uganda was one of three African countries that had not record any death.