At least 50 Members of Parliament and staff who participated in the EAC Legislative Assemblies’ sports in Arusha Tanzania have tested positive for Covid-19, the Director of Communication and Public Affairs, Chris Obore has confirmed.
These Members of Parliament and staff who tested positive for coronavirus are being managed by the Ministry of Health and Parliament Health team and so far No hospitalization case registered and The majority who went to Arusha Tanzania are safe,” Chris Obore tweeted Tuesday.
Chris Obore further explained that since the games were interactive in nature, the players could not strictly observe the COVID-19 Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
These cases were detected at the entry of Parliament in Kampala and Chris Obore’s assistant, Grace Gidudu did not readily avail the number when asked the total number of people who left for Arusha to participate in the East African Community (EAC) Inter-Parliamentary games
She however said that all legislators and staff were tested for the virus in the conference hall of Parliament on Monday following their return in the country as its a routine process that neither targeted the legislators.
The East African Community (EAC) Inter-Parliamentary Games started which on December 4, 2021, and ended on December 17, 2021, attracted national parliaments of Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, and the members of East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), competed in eight sports types that included football, volleyball, volleyball, golf, tug of war, basketball, and darts. In these games played, Uganda’s parliament emerged the overall best in athletics, with two gold medals. The lady’s team also won gold with Uganda also winning silver in football.
The development comes barely two days after the State Minister for Primary Healthcare, Ms Margaret Muhanga confirmed official data showing a dramatic rise in infections, driven primarily by the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus. The test positivity rate, a key metric, jumped from 0.6 percent two weeks ago to 5.9 percent on December 18. On December 4, 34 out of 5,301 samples tested came back positive. On December 17, 357 out of 6,497 tested positive.
