Our Work at REMI East Africa revolves around ensuring that everyone, irrespective of their social-economic status, geographical location, or gender, can access quality health care, live healthier, dignified, and productive lives.

Unfortunately, this is not the case for the poorest of the poor, for example, in Uganda, where they mainly live in rural areas, suburbs, and slums. Their health access points are under-resourced and under-equipped with very few health care workers serving in these settings having training in critical care to manage severe or critical cases, in case the respiratory pandemic progresses and escalates. As of June 2 2020, Uganda had 507 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with most being treated in rural, regional referral hospitals with seven health workers affected by the virus.

At the moment, the country is in a phase of reopening after the lockdowns. What is unclear is whether we shall have massive community transmission like some countries and if it’s the case, will our fragile health system be able to deal with the pressing demands. Despite these unknowns, what is absolutely clear and being iterated by David Nabarro, World Health Organization’s COVID-19 special envoy, is the need for quality information to avail of critical care to the very ill and maintain care for non-COVID-19 patients.