Travellers from countries considered to have significant numbers of Coronavirus disease with potential to cause spread to Uganda are being restricted from traveling to the Uganda.
The latest countries affected by the travel restriction includes travellers from San Marino, Belgium, USA, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Australia and Malaysia.
This new development is coming after the government last weekend put travel restrictions on seven other countries; Italy, Iran, South Korea, France, China, Germany and Spain, bringing the total number of affected countries to 16.
At this time, Uganda does not have any reported case of COVID-19 and the minister noted that the government was determined to take the needed precaution to prevent its spread to the country.
Travellers from restricted countries who wish to travel to Uganda are welcome but must self-isolate for 14 days at their own expense.
Those who refuse self-isolation will be asked to leave the country immediately:
“Uganda has no travel ban as has been reported by some people. We are not stopping anyone from coming to Uganda but people in restricted countries need to know that they will be followed up. We have put out the guidelines of self-quarantine on our website and those who are travelling should come prepared with an idea of what they will go through,” Dr Aceng explained.
According to The Observer, Uganda refused 22 European delegates entry into the country on March 9 after refusing to self-isolate. They had travelled to the country to take in Uganda-EU Business Forum.
The news outlet further reported that so far, 1,623 travellers had been followed by the Uganda ministry of health and asked for self-quarantine since COVID 19 outbreak in China in December 2019.
Of these 1,071 are Chinese, 244 are Ugandans, 443 are Italians and 34 are from South Korea.
Worldwide, more than 118,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported and over 4,000 deaths occurred in over 100 countries.
In Africa, 11 countries have reported cases: Egypt, Algeria, Algeria, Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Cameroon, Togo, Burkina Faso and DR Congo.
