Uganda records third Covid19 death; All three cases undetected until they turned fatal

Uganda registered her third Covid19 death on July 31 after a resident of Kisenyi in Kampala succumbed to the deadly respiratory disease.

The deceased was aged 67 and was of Nigerian descent, revealed the Ministry of Health (MoH) director general of Health Services Dr Henry Mwebesa.

He had presented with cough, fever, chest pain and difficulty in breathing, symptoms consistent with Covid19. After failing to find help from a nearby clinic, the patient had gone to Kiruddu Hospital.

But he would later die on July 29, bringing Uganda’s Covid19 death toll to three.

This third death shows a worrying trend for Uganda’s fight against Covid19 since, like the two previous fatalities, it was not detected at an earlier stage.

Uganda’s first registered Covid19 death was that of a 34-year-old female in Namisindwa. The second was of an 80-year-old female from Kisenyi III in Mengo, Kampala.

Read: It’s real: WHO, Health Ministry warn Ugandans after Namisindwa Covid19 Death

For all the three fatal cases, MoH confirmed the cause of death after receiving results from samples tested at the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) when it was too late: the patients had passed on.

MoH has now listed 15 contacts for tracing, and possible quarantining.

From samples tested on July 30, seven people tested positive for Covid19, increasing the infection toll to 1,154. New cases include two truck drivers from South Sudan and DR Congo; three alerts and two contacts.

UVRI tested 3,229, increasing the total number of samples tested to 272,805.