The Minister of Health Dr Ruth Jane Aceng has appealed to all Ugandans to massively vaccinate instead of worrying about the outbreak of new Omicron Coronavirus strain in the country.
The Uganda Medical Research Council has Tuesday confirmed that 9 cases of Omicron variant have been detected in Uganda and all were travellers who tested positive at Entebbe Airport.
“We report for the first-time detection of the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) in Uganda from samples taken
from travelers arriving in the country through Entebbe International airport.
The Omicron variant has been designated as a variant of concern by the WHO and presents with some deletions and more than 30 mutations in the spike region.
As the number of Omicron cases increases globally, there is a need for near real-time genomic surveillance to keep track of emerging and circulating variants for the effective control of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic,” reads the document from Medical Research Council.
Weighing in on the document, Hon Aceng has explained that five of the travellers were coming from Nigeria while others were from South Africa.
“They have been isolated, we are monitoring them and they are not severely ill. So there is nothing to worry about. But it should be noted that this virus must have spread widely across the globe while it was not detected,” Minister Aceng said at a news conference on Tuesday.
However, she said that the variant is highly transmissible- moving faster from person to person.
She added that the Omicron mostly infects the unvaccinated- “This stresses further the need to vaccinate. We have adequate vaccines and they are for free.”
