Tackling COVID-19 among truck drivers

The President needs to take decisive measures to consolidate the gains in the fight against the Corona virus

COMMENT | WALTER AKENA | Over the last one month, President Yoweri Museveni has addressed Ugandans many times, each time giving an account of the nation’s efforts to break the chain of the deadly Corona virus disease COVID-19. In the address on April 19, the President was impressed by the efforts the scientists and medical professionals are putting in, which he said is responsible for flattening the curves in the case of Uganda. The number of positive cases as reported by the Director General of Health Services on April 23 officially stood at 63. Of these, 46 cases had recovered and been discharged from hospital leaving the country with 17 active cases that the medical professionals were managing.

At the time, seven of the new cases discovered in the preceding week are what one would call “imported” because they were trans-border cargo transport drivers who are either nationals of Kenya or Tanzania that have become the high risk countries of East Africa going by their increasing cases daily or weekly.

President Museveni has continuously said “we have studied the behaviour of the virus and come to a conclusion that it is more of a behaviour issue rather than a complicated medical case”.

In his latest addresses, the President applauds Ugandans for complying with the guidelines and safety measures which he said were largely responsible for the successes so far registered in the fight against Covid-19.

While, as citizens, we can pride in our level of discipline and compliance with the directives, it is also imperative that we give credit to the Head of State for taking the decisive and timely measures like closing institutions of learning, suspending religious, political and traditional gatherings, all in-bound and out-bound passenger flights, public transport, closing non-food markets and other concomitant directives to deny the virus the dry grass and the match sticks.

It is not surprising that after Burundi and South Sudan, Uganda has the least confirmed cases of Covid-19 in East Africa and sits arguably top globally among nations in terms of managing the global pandemic. Up to this point, the country had reported double-digit new infections only once; when the eleven children of Watoto Church tested positive on March 31, 2020. The country had 38 recoveries (more than 50 % of the reported cases) and no deaths.

It is a public secret that Covid-19 has led to a slowdown of the global economy and national governments have been engaging their top notch economists to chart ways of keeping the economy afloat in the wake of the virus.

In Uganda, the economic impact of the Covid-19 has begun to bite. A huge chunk of the population, those in the transport sector and other informal businesses have been temporarily laid off and now have to be fed by government, traders of non-food items are reportedly now surviving on their capitals while staring at a bleak future before them. They are not sure if they will get back to business after the virus has gone.

Despite the gains so far registered, it looks like the handling of truck drivers is going to take us three steps backward. The President said; “If you say that the current 800 truck drivers (who make it through the borders) stay at the border, it will interfere with business. The economy should move, but move without the disease spreading.”

While we don’t doubt the intentions of government in handling the truck drivers, it is safer to err on the side of caution. It would be prudent to be sure of the test results before releasing the truck drivers to commingle with people along their routes. It may not be through physical contact but may be through the money they will use to buy food from the people along the way.

During his eighth address to the nation, the President did say; “this is not about convenience but it is a matter of life and death, not just death but mass death”. This should have been the bedrock of government’s handling of the truck drivers who seem to be the new match sticks in the hands of the virus coming to meet with dry grass (citizens along the highways). Because like the Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo is quoted to have said; “we know what to do to bring back our economy to life. What we do not know how to do is to bring people back to life”. The President needs to take yet another decisive measure to deal with the truck drivers whose businesses can be brought back to life unlike the lives of those who will be infected through their businesses.

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Walter Akena is Project Officer Local Government Council Scorecard Initiative at ACODE

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