By Rogers Wanambwa 

KIU Main Campus - According to a statement released on July 3rd, 2020, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the government is not going to accept anymore returnees from this week (from July 4th, 2020). 

This is intended to control the congestion in the 37 gazetted quarantine facilities by the Ministry of Health. These are found in Entebbe and Kampala and have a total capacity of 2,500 rooms.  

The decision is estimated to affect 1,500 returnees who are going to have to reschedule their return flights. Many of these are from North America, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, China and Malaysia and were scheduled to arrive this week. 

Although in the beginning the plan was that only 300 Ugandans would return every two weeks, according to the Ministry of Health guidelines, in a space of just one week, around 1,000 people had returned and filled up the gazatted quarantine facilities, this according to the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Patrick Mugoya. 

He added on that the return of Ugandans will only resume after health officials have attended to those currently in the quarantine centers. 

These include those from Turkey, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, India, Italy and the United Kingdom. As per the Ministry of Health's guidelines, all returnees are supposed to undergo a mandatory two weeks institutional quarantine period.  

Source: The Observer