MPs on Uganda’s Parliamentary Covid19 Taskforce have shocked their colleagues after revealing that some people in the eastern district of Butaleja had resorted to ferrying coronavirus patients from hospitals to shrines for treatment.
Unveiled by deputy speaker of Parliament Anita Annet Among at the close of June 2021, the taskforce’s role is amplifying the voices and decisions of parliament as well as representing the legislative arm of government on the national Covid19 taskforce.
The taskforce is also responsible for the coordination of interventions by regional parliamentary forums.
Bugweri county MP Abdul Katuntu is the chairperson of the taskforces.
Other key leaders of the taskforce are: Dan Atwijukire (Kazo), Agnes Kunihira (Workers), Bernard Odoi (Youth- Eastern), Anna Adeke (Soroti Woman MP) and Dicksons Kateshumbwa (Sheema Municipality).
The parliamentary taskforce has already started on its work, making visits to health facilities and communities.
According to Butaleja District Woman MP Florence Nebanda, a member of the eastern region parliamentary taskforce on Covid19, locals are not only sneaking coronavirus patients from hospitals to shrines for treatment but they are also taking dead bodies to witchdoctors for rituals.
“People are going to the extent of exhuming corpses to perform rituals,” said MP Nebanda.
The MPs further learnt that Butaleja District had registered an increase in teenage pregnancies as a result of the Covid19 lockdown.
The MPs quoted Busolwe Hospital Medical Superintendent Ivan Wambi as saying that between 20 and 30 antenatal visits are made by girls between ages 13 and 17 every week.
