ENTEBBE.
The Secretary General Uganda Red Cross Society, Mr Robert Kwesiga has revealed that newly acquired personal protective materials for health workers is set to boost their safety and capacity readiness to respond to medical emergencies’ to Infectious disease outbreaks across the country.
“Uganda has gone through a chain of so many epidemics, and even pandemics, if you talk of COVID 19, the protection of the health workers and medical personnel is paramount because they must be safe before they can attend to the patients” he said.
Mr Kwesigwa made the remarks while receiving a consignment of high-grade FFP2 and FFP3 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE’s) worth Euros 584,000 (Shs 2.4 billion) from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), Airbus foundation and its partners at Entebbe International Airport on Wednesday.
“This comes in through the Red Cross, but we are going to pass it on to the Ministry of Health which will determine how they are going to distribute it among the health facilities and health workers for their protection” he said.
Mr Kwesiga said the donation is a timely boost to the country’s epidemic preparedness as Uganda recovers from the recent Sudan Ebola virus outbreak.
The IFRC country delegate , Mr Henry Musembi said the idea of delivering the protective equipment for the health workers began during the recent Ebola outbreak response and will go a long way in helping the ministry of health’s efforts to the ongoing Mpox outbreak response.
“The PPEs that we are receiving today is the filtering face mask, category 2 and 3, that are used to prevent infections and we have received 94 ballots, the items are essential for preparedness and pre-positioning, because we don’t know really when the next epidemic is going to happen and it will also be beneficial, especially for healthcare facility workers, for infection prevention and control” he said.