Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Friday announced new strict anti-coronavirus measures in a bid to curb a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic gripping the East African nation, reported Reuters.
The measures announced by Museveni include a complete ban on private and public transportation within and across districts, including in the capital Kampala. Only vehicles carrying cargo and those transporting the sick or essential workers have been exempted.
The shops in downtown Kampala have been ordered to remain shut. An ongoing nighttime curfew will be in place as previously announced. Schools and educational institutions will continue to remain closed and other public gatherings restricted. The new measures will last for the next 42 days.
“These are urgent and temporary but extraordinary measures which we as a nation must jointly and fully embrace to protect and preserve our lives, our ways of life,” the Ugandan president said.
Uganda is among some African countries seeing a dramatic rise in the number of infections amid a vaccine shortage.
The Ugandan health authorities have confirmed reporting a total of 68,779 coronavirus infections, including 584 deaths, so far.
Meanwhile, on Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned about surging Covid-19 cases across African nations, with the spread of new more contagious variants and dangerously low vaccination rates.
“It’s a trajectory that is very, very concerning,” WHO’s emergencies chief Michael Ryan told reporters from the organization’s headquarters in Geneva.
The number of new COVID-19 cases across Africa rose to over 116,500 in the week ending June 13, up from nearly 91,000 the previous week.
Ryan said that the African continent is still not in bad shape has been hit less hard by the pandemic than most other regions, accounting for just over five percent of new global coronavirus cases and 2.2 percent of global deaths last week.
However, he warned that the trajectory was pointing straight up across the continent, with over 100-percent increases in a range of countries, and over 50 percent in others.
Africa has recorded over 136,000 deaths from some 5.1 million cases so far.
