Just a few days after the country celebrated the full recovery of 3 of the 53 coronavirus patients, more encouraging reports indicate that another set of 15 patients are set to be discharged from the hospital at least by Easter Monday after preliminary tests confirmed that they have fully recovered from the sickness.
On Saturday, the three unnamed COVID-19 survivors were formally discharged from hospital by Prime Minister, Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda after the Ministry of Health conducted two negative confirmatory tests at 24-hour intervals, proving full recovery.
“15 others are ready for discharge but because we haven’t prepared their communities to receive them, they will leave the hospital probably on Easter Monday,” Health Minister Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng reported.
According to Aceng, all the 18 have been treated with antimalarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine which offers credence to suggestions by French and U.S scientists that the two drugs can effectively cure COVID-19.
As of Saturday, Uganda had 53 COVID-19 confirmed cases, and, the recovery of the 18 patients present a positive trajectory in Uganda’s response to the pandemic.
The Ministry of Health will however keep the survivors under close watch for the next two weeks after being discharged, offering psychosocial support, counselling, to allow them to reintegrate in their respective communities and beat-off the associated stigma.
“I am happy that the Ministry of Health is taking extra measures to ensure that the communities are sensitized not to stigmatise the survivors,” Rugunda said.
Having successfully treated the 18 cases, Rugunda said, Entebbe Hospital is turning into a centre of excellence in the management of COVID-19.
The hospital received a total of 30 COVID-19 patients and 25 suspects.
The development sends a ray of hope among the fear strikened population following the Nationwide lockdown that has since made lives hard in the country.
It will also lessen the tensions among the public which has often resulted in stigmatization of victims and suspects by the people who did not look at the disease as one that is curable.
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