Five Tanzanian Truck drivers have been discharged from Arua Regional Referral Hospital where they have been receiving treatment for COVID-19 after they tested positive I April.
Four drivers were intercepted in Pakwach on April 24 and one was intercepted at Vurra Customs on April 25.
State Minister for Primary Health Care Dr Joyce Moriku Kaducu presided over the event to discharge the five men, while a team from the World Health Organization, the Ministry of Health and COVID-19 task force officials also attended.
According to Dr Philbert Nyeko, the Director of Arua Hospital, the truck drivers who have spent 20 days in the Treatment Centre were discharged after testing negative to subsequent COVID-19 tests.
Dr Kaducu in her speech said that the discharged cured truck drivers shall remain at the treatment centre until a communication is received from the Embassy of Tanzania to receive and pick them. At the beginning of the lockdown, Tanzanian and Kenyan truck drivers who tested positive were tracked down and sent back for treatment, until guidelines from WHO indicated that they should be treated in the country where they are confirmed positive.
Tanzania’s High Commissioner to Uganda had been expected to travel to Arua to officially receive the truck drivers for transportation back to Tanzania, but the minister says they made efforts to get in touch with the Tanzanian Embassy officials in vain.
This brings the number of recoveries in Uganda to 60 while the confirmed cases stand at 126.
