The World Health Organization – WHO has said that the African continent witnessed the lowest level of COVID-19 cases since the onset of the pandemic compared to other continents.
While giving a brief to Journalist on December 13, 2022, Dr Baldé Thierno, the Incident Manager for WHO Africa Regional Office says the continent recorded 9,415,892 cases compared to other regions including Europe with 266, 656,115, America with 183, 240,642, West Pacific with 100, 663,304 South-East Asia with 60,695,297 and Eastern Mediterranean with 23,203, 392 confirmed cases.
Dr. Balde notes that the responses made by various African states in the COVID-19 fight over the last three years are paying off, with the region better able to cope with the virus and its health emergency response systems sustained.
He added that the overall decreasing pandemic burden in Africa is easing pressure on national public health resources, allowing countries to further boost disrupted health services and increase focus on other health priorities such as routine immunization, disease surveillance and response to other outbreaks.
He called for more efforts on sensitization of the public on the dangers of the pandemic while continuing to monitor the situation in the African countries.
In Uganda, from 3 January 2020 to 13 December 2022, there have been 170,255 Confirmed Cases with 3,632 Death Cases, according to the Ministry of Health Uganda Website.
As of 26 November 2022, a total of 26,244,519 vaccine doses have been administered.
Dr. Wilson Etolu the consultant Surgeon also the in-charge COVID-19 Unit at Soroti Regional Referral Hospital attributes the low COVID-19 infections to adherence by the community members to the standard operating procedures and uptake of COVID-19 vaccination.
Meanwhile Julius Opoi, the Executive Director OJ Disability Care Foundation (OJCARE) a community based organization in Soroti asked the government to work strategically with local organizations to identify PWDs who are struggling to gain their human fundamental rights.
He says under OJ Disability Care Foundation they managed to conduct outreach programs for persons with disabilities to get access to covid-19 jabs where hundreds of persons with disabilities managed to get courage to access the covid-19 jab.