Richard Walyomu, the incident commander of Mpox in Kampala at Kampala Capital City Authority, alleged that currently, they have confirmed 96 cases in Kampala, with 56 cases coming from the Kawempe division, 13 cases from Lubaga, 11 cases from the central, 8 cases from Nakawa, and 9 cases from Makindye.
Walyomu says that among the most affected persons are commercial sex workers, Boda Boda riders, market vendors, and those timber dealers. He also observed that most of the affected sex workers have been found to be HIV positive because of their low immunity.
According to Walyomu, there are also a few cases registered from people working in betting companies, saloons, a teacher, and children who got the disease from their parents.
Now, KCCA has instituted Mpox coordination task forces headed by the resident city commissioners (RCC) of respective divisions, including religious leaders and technical people, to manage the surge in numbers.
The authority has also instituted a robust surveillance team and trained about 200 village health teams VHTs in every division to sensitize the communities about the disease.
Also Read: Kigogwa Fuel Tanker Death count rises to 26
During the 30th Annual Health Sub-Program Joint Review Mission held in Uganda earlier this year, Minister of Health Jane Ruth Aceng spoke of a “quite fast trend” in mpox cases across the country, with at least 19 districts affected since the outbreak was declared in early August.
She said Uganda is following closely behind the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi in the number of confirmed cases of the highly viral disease in Africa.
“They [cases] are a little too many. In the last few days, the numbers of confirmed cases are increasing quite fast,” said Aceng. “I want to remind the districts to reactivate the taskforces and do your work. The partners [development agencies] on ground will support you. We all must rise up to the job and ensure that we control monkeypox as quickly as possible.”
In the metropolitan area, there are 33 cases in Wakiso and 6 cases in Mukono.
