Contact tracing for COVID-19 suspects; a surveillance officers’ day

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The increase of coronavirus cases in Uganda has resulted in increased surveillance from within communities, in order to trace contacts and monitor trends of the disease where human to human transmission occurs.

This is what has become a full-time job for Moses Muhimbise, a professional accountant turned surveillance officer. Every day, the list of his contacts increases with each case that tests positive.

On the day of our appointment, a member of staff at the United Nations Uganda office had just tested positive for coronavirus (COVID -19). This implied that all his colleagues had to be traced to establish if any of them had presented signs and symptoms of the disease that may include fever, flu-like symptoms.

By 8 am., Muhimbise and his team were already on the move and had 12 contacts to look out for, according to their list.

Currently, Uganda has 52 positive cases and 15 of them had already interacted with an unknown number of people in the community. In addition to these are the over 2,000 people who are thought to have been exposed to the virus as they travelled from different countries to Uganda around March 21 when Uganda registered the initial positive case.

From the time, Muhimbise who hasn’t been to medical school but has received some training on disease surveillance at the KCCA facility in Kisenyi has to visit communities around Kampala, take temperature measurement of people under self- quarantine and make inquiries if some have developed symptoms.

The surveillance provides epidemiological information to conduct risk assessments and provide information to guide preparedness and response measures. To achieve this, Muhimbise works with a team of three people among them, a clinician, a laboratory officer and a social worker. He says the team is also supposed to draw samples from suspects.

However, they don’t do this because they don’t have all the protective gear they require.

In the battle to tame the spread of COVID-19, it has been proven that COVID-19 transmission from one person to another can be slowed or stopped through active case finding, care and isolation, contact tracing, and quarantine.

surveillance activities have also helped to detect and monitor if there is COVID-19 transmission in the community.

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