By Nathan Eyagu

Soroti district covid 19 task force has cried out to the government for more supply of covid 19 testing kit as those available are not enough to handle the overwhelming number of people.

The concern was raised yesterday 28th September by the Soroti district chairperson Hon. Edoru Simon Peter is also the task force head of the district.

‘’We are carrying out community outreach testing in different sub-counties of the district and we noticed that the people are willing to get tested outside the health facilities with fear that they may acquire the virus when they visit the health facilities but we are running short of testing kits’’ he said

Edoru also further noted that some of the challenges faced by the team while carrying out the work include inadequate transport to help in the movement of the health team from one sub-county to another as they are only using two vehicles, low staffing in most health units as the team is only able to reach out to one unit per day.

‘’If the above challenges are handled, then we believe that as a district, we shall be able to have covered every village in terms of sensitization, testing and vaccinating the people by the month of November as we prepare to open up the schools’’ he said

He also explained that most of the cases are mainly from the rural setting where the locals don’t put much emphasis on the SOPs as compared to the urban setting.

He further attributes the increasing cases to be coming from sub-counties like Awoja, Kamuda, and Lale that are next to the lake shores and Oculoi mining site where the team has always faced challenges meeting up with the locals who are hard to get whenever they go out for outreach while those bordering Soroti city like Asuret, Arapai, Katine among others as being the ones having many positive cases of covid following the samples and tests carried out by the team.

‘’I don’t see any reason of closing Soroti city, the problem is within the villages where people have failed to follow the SOP’s, those entering Soroti should confirm if they are tested and the districts relaxed should regulate their movements around Soroti district as it's worrying the covid team, let the people continue observing the guidelines as this disease is within us’’ he added