The Ministry of Health has said that 80 per cent of the people who have succumbed to COVID-19 were battling diabetes.
As of Monday, Uganda had recorded 75 deaths as a result of COVID-19.
Dr. Gerald Mutungi, who heads the Non- Communicable Diseases (NCDs) Division in the Ministry says that Non-Communicable Diseases have had the most causalities because many people went off their hypertensive drugs during the lockdown and the onset of community transmission found their immune systems already down.
He added that many people didn’t heed to their appeal of picking refills of up to three months to limit trips to the health facilities, and as a result, even as their programs in the Ministry are targeted at reducing the burden, they are seeing an increase instead. Dr. Gerald on Covid-19;….
Christopher
Kwizera, the Executive Director of an NGO Uganda NCD Alliance said the
government take the blame for this as they gave up on pre-existing conditions and
put all efforts on combating COVID-19 to the extent that NCD clinics in some
hospitals were closed and they remain closed to date.
At Mengo hospital, Dr Susan Nakireka, a physician at the NCDs clinic says
patients who made it to their clinic presented with a lot of complications that
they had to pay expensively for their treatment. ENDS.