“Angles” is a call that would hardly be related to the burial of COVID-19, however, in the Greater Masaka subregion of southern Uganda, they are known as such.
It all began in the Lwankoni subcount, Kyambogo village, Kyoteera district, where the team had gone to safely and dignifiedly bury a deceased COVID-19 patient brought from Kampala. It is a spectacle worth contemplating for the locals. They had never noticed such a team, let alone witnessed the death of a COVID-19.
“The team came here fully dressed in their non-public protective equipment, which is mystical to network members. Many fled when they were seen,” said Dr. Edward Muwanga, Health Officer of Kyoteera District.
To the mystique is added the requirement that no one, except the team members, manipulate the coffin and that everyone is at least five meters away. Every place the team passed on the way to the grave was already ready was sprayed with diluted liquid chlorine from a spray pump.
Funerals have never been like this in Kyoteera, in this community, in Uganda and indeed in Africa, the dead and funerals are wonderful ceremonies with tears, torn hair, touching or washing the dead and many others to give the deceased a consignment. worthy. Combined, dance and drumming are also practiced in many societies and this lasts for days.
So to say that COVID-19 has fundamentally replaced the burial regime in Kyoteera and Uganda is sometimes an underestimation of what locals are witnessing. With instances of COVID-19 and deaths spreading every day, it’s the new life that locals will have to adapt to.
Dr. Mark Juuko, a follower of standard operating procedures (SoP) leads the 10-person burial team for Kyoteera District and ensures that this team meets and implements SoPs to the letter. ‘It is very vital to comply with procedures to prevent them from spreading the infection and for my team,’ explains Dr Juuko.
As soon as Dr. Juuko is informed through the Ministry of Health of the imminent arrival of a COVID-19 corpse, contacts the burial team, the area’s disease surveillance officer secures the burial site, oversees the excavation of the tomb and ensures that all mandatory appliances are available.
At the same time, the burial team sympathizes with the grieving family circle and the fare officer provides mandatory psychosocial support, causing all non-essential people to be evacuated and no one to be allowed in five metres from the cemetery.
And this is where COVID-19 funerals are separated from Uganda’s way of doing, residents will have to be informed not to see their departure for “last time” and not participate in the funeral rite that is devastating to “We are surprised that we did not say goodbye to our son for the last time because the norm is in our culture” Salongo Kyeyune, resident of kyambogo village where the funeral took place, says.
Arriving at the burial site, the team put on their non-public protective apparatus (EPI), making them look like angels from heaven, hence the reference of the inhabitants. The team performed all the activities, adding seal the tomb with concrete. Once satisfied, they sprayed the post once more, ceremonially stripped off their PPE and burned them. It’s a popular procedure for the team, but it’s been a tragedy, a surprise and an admiration for the local community.
According to Dr. Juuko, this total delight had a positive domino effect with respect to the substitution in the behavior of COVID-19. “People are afraid, the truth is settled and genuine that COVID 19 is genuine and that other people are wasting their lives,” he says. According to him, the activities of the burial team have greater “awareness and belief of the threat of COVID-19 in those communities. “
Usually, before the equipment arrives, you can see at most other people without a mask and the physical distance and normal hand washing is alien to them, but when the equipment arrives, they put on the mask and physically walk away.
Although the COVID-19 burial procedure has hypnotized and frightened the local population, at the same time it has cooperated very well, knowing that if not, one of your own may be the next to be treated in this way. “The communities and families we visited were cooperative, following the commands and rules given to them, so our paintings developed smoothly and smoothly,” says Dr Juuko.
The existing Ministry of Health protocol requires each district to have a well-trained, prepared and provided burial team, and efforts are being made to ensure that all districts have these groups in a position to perform decent burials in communities.
Fortunately for Uganda, the preparation and status quo of funeral groups began before the COVID-19 pandemic; in fact, the various outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever in several districts. This investment depended heavily on the aid of the World Health Organization with the investment of benevolent partners such as the Department for International Development (DFID), the Danish Agency for International Development (DANIDA) and Irish Aid.
Certainly, more paintings are desired in terms of training, recycling and equipment so that all districts have fully operational funeral groups. The Ministry of Health, with the help of WHO and its partners, is already working on this issue. It is that burial group facilities will not be mandatory if everyone follows and implements COVID-19 rules, rules and SoPs that are already widely and deeply shared in the country.
Meanwhile, as the number of COVID-19 deaths in the country increases, the “angels” will continue to adopt and worthy burials, alone, with communities playing little or no role. This, in fact, is a component of the strange general novelty that COVID-19 has brought to Uganda.
Distributed through the APO Group on behalf of the WHO Regional Office for Africa.
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