By Leilah Bbaale
The Ministry of Health ministry is to carry out a COVID-19 rapid assessment survey to determine the number of people that have been infected with COVID-19. The survey is scheduled to be carried out at the end of the month.
This follows a drop in the number of people who are testing for the disease. Â According to the health ministry, the rate of collecting samples has dropped to over 50 percent.
Data from the health ministry show that in the last two weeks, 1,200 samples on average have been collected and tested nationwide for COVID-19 compared to over 5,000 samples two months ago.
This will be the third assessment that the health ministry will be carrying out for COVID-19 since the country declared its first case in March 2020.
During the previous assessment, over 14,000 persons living in 11 districts that were reporting high numbers of cases were tested. The main aim of the study was to determine the extent of community transmissions in the country.
Results that were released by the health ministry showed that there were no community transmissions despite there being a slow but steady increase in the number of cases reported.
Prof Moses Joloba, the Dean School of Biomedical Sciences, Makerere University College of Health Sciences and also an investigator on the survey says unlike the first two assessment that were focused on community infections, the third assessment will focus on the rate of exposure of communities to the virus.
