Health Ministry equips UPDF to combat coronavirus

By Our Reporter

Bombo – The Ministry of Health has, on Tuesday, March 10, started training UPDF at the Mbuya Senior Officers Diagnostic Centre on the prevention of the deadly Coronavirus (CODIV 19) with the aim of equipping soldiers with skills to combat the outbreak of the virus.

Maj Gen Ambrose Musinguzi, the UPDF Chief of Medical Services, who represented the Chief of Defence Forces [CDF] at the Land Forces Headquarters in Bombo, North of Kampala, lauded the ministry of health for being timely in equipping the force’s medical personnel with skills to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.

He said that as the UPDF they are mandated to respond to emergencies like they have been doing over the years, therefore the training only helps them to respond better to the virus in case it hits the country.

“As UPDF, we are under obligation to respond to emergencies and help to protect the people we serve,” Gen. Ambrose said.

The Chief of medical services announced that there will be various trainings to train soldiers on how to prevent the spread of coronavirus, this is the first one and another Training is to be held at Bombo Land Forces headquarters.

“These trained teams will be the ones to further train and sensitize other soldiers from other units countrywide in the UPDF including those in Somalia” he emphasized.

Dr. Bondo Bongomin from the Ministry of Health said that the ministry is partnering with UPDF to deliver the message about CoronaVirus which broke out in December 2019. “We thought it wise to equip you with the preventive skills against this global epidemic since UPDF is a very proactive institution when it comes to emergencies”.

He said that after the training, trainees should be in position to know the signs and symptoms of coronavirus and be able to prevent the spread of the disease.

Dr. Salome Okware the ministry official assured the trainees that they should be in position to form teams and be ready to fight the epidemic after the training.
She added that hygiene must be a priority in order to avoid the spread of the disease through washing hands thoroughly and quickly identifying the patients with the signs of the virus and isolating them.

The training session was attended by Senior UPDF medical officers across the services and formations.