COVID-19 pandemic, Uganda’s story

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage health care systems, economies, livelihoods, and cultures across the world, responses across countries have varied greatly. Uganda adopted its own model taking into consideration its culture, values, environment, socio-economic activities, beliefs, previous successful epidemic experience, and appears a hybrid policy to the Norwegian model. This model of response is perhaps based on Uganda’s long experience in successful control of many previous epidemics which afflicted it and the neighboring countries, e.g, HIV and AIDs in the 1980s, Measles in the 1990s, Hepatitis B in the 2000s, Ebola in 2000, 2017 and 2018 and Marburg in 2018. In our view the near complete lockdown through shutting down air, road, water travels and congregate settings as well as the restriction of people’s movement through the stay home policy may have, so far, played a significant role in this pandemic containment and control. Most notable is that there is an established and clear leadership structure, experienced health workforce, good political will, enabling environment, and good epidemic response by the population. Even though one can reasonably argue that the numbers of COVID-19 cases seen in Uganda so far, are not anywhere close to those large numbers seen in the USA, Asia and other European countries, Uganda’s story on how it is managing the pandemic is worth sharing as it might provide useful lessons for future public health interventions to a pandemic of this magnitude, particularly in low-resource settings. Uganda’s President continued to provide national leadership, guidance, and coordination to the COVID-19 National task force for the response. The President and Ministry of Health authorities employed both electronic and social media such as radios, music, Televisions, SMS messages, twitters, group emails, and WhatsApp messages to engage, mobilize, and sensitize the population on COVID-19 preventive interventions through provision of regular updates. In conclusion, simultaneous multiple public health interventions through a structured leadership may in part contribute to reasonable and timely control of a pandemic such as COVID-19.