The Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, has backtracked on her earlier proposal of cutting the school term short as one of the means to stop the deadly Ebola virus disease from spreading into schools.
In an interview that aired on TV on Sunday, Dr. Aceng said that the education ministry should think about letting non-candidate classes get out of school earlier to stop the disease from spreading in schools.
However, the comment raised eyebrows among parents and educationists, who said that with the schools returning from an unprecedented school closure that lasted for two years, a fresh school closure should be a last resort option.
While speaking to residents of Kassanda at Kalwana Church of Uganda on Tuesday, Dr. Aceng assured parents that schools would not be disrupted despite the rise in cases of the Ebola virus disease.
Aceng added that students exhibiting symptoms should stay at home and alert authorities to pick them up. She added that anyone who becomes ill at school should notify the medical staff right away so that they can evacuate them for testing.
Our reporter noticed two schools in Kassanda that were neighboring Kalwana and that had been designated as isolation centers, but the minister said that even those schools would not close if they could adhere to the suggested standard operating procedures.
Last week, the Ministry of Health announced that at least six pupils from three schools in Rubaga Division in Kampala were among the 47 Ebola patients fighting for their lives at various treatment centers in the country.
When President Yoweri Museveni ordered, among other things, the freezing of the movement of vehicles, Boda Bodas, and people from Mubende and Kassanda to other districts due to the outbreak of Ebola, schools were left open.
But the education ministry told schools in and around Mubende and Kassanda to bring back the COVID-19 Standard Operating Procedures to stop both diseases from spreading in school communities.
The precautions included restricting access to visitors, but many schools outside the two districts did not take the advice seriously. Even recently, when the ministry emphasized the ban on visitors, many schools defied the directive.
The State Minister for Higher Education, John Chrysostom Muyingo, also said that headteachers and parents should take the guideline seriously to ensure the safety of learners, teachers, and other staff in schools.
Meanwhile, UNICEF has started providing schools with supplies such as handwashing materials to combat the deadly viral disease, starting with those at the epicenter in Mubende and Kassanda.
