Ugandan parliament spokesperson Chris Obore has spoken up after about 50 MPs and staff contracted Covid-19 while in Tanzania.
Over 300 MPs and their staff joined their counterparts from the East Africa region for the East African Legislative Assembly games in Arusha, Tanzania that lasted for two weeks.
Other countries that participated in the friendly games include Tanzania, Burundi, Kenya and Uganda. South Sudan and Rwanda however did not participate in the games due to unavoidable circumstances but sent their apologies.
It is however unclear why only Ugandan MPs and their staff contracted the virus while those from the other countries like Kenya did not record any cases.
49 out of 130 Ugandan MPs and staff tested positive for COVID-19 after attending East African inter-parliamentary games in Arusha, Tanzania.
That’s 38% of Ugandans on the trip.
How come the Kenyan, Burundian, Rwandan or Tanzanian contingents have 0 publicly reported cases?
— Larry Madowo (@LarryMadowo) December 21, 2021
According to Obore, they could not avoid being infected because the games were interactive. He was also part of the team that was in Tanzania.
Obore said that the group took covid tests twice while en route to Uganda, first in Arusha and second at the Malaba border because they feared that they might have been infected.
“Because Uganda and Tanzania have different approaches to COVID fight. There are no Standard operating procedures, there are no masks, there’s no nothing. And yet the games are interactive. There’s contact. There’s no way Uganda would have escaped. For us who were wearing masks they even think we are sick. They see you wearing a mask, they know these are Ugandans,” Obore said.
The Ministry of Health is however working closely with the parliament to ensure that infected MPs and staff do not spread the virus.
“That’s why we even assisted in retesting them. We have to first sequence them before we conclude what kind of variant they have. They might be the normal Covid cases of the strains we’ve been registering,” Health Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Ainebyoona said.
The MPs from the Eastern Africa bloc participated in disciplines such as walk race, football, netball, golf, athletics, tug-of-war and volleyball and athletics.
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