Nile Breweries Limited (NBL) on Wednesday donated 1,500 litres of fuel to Mbarara City Covid-19 taskforce to help in the implementation of presidential directives and evacuating positive cases from villages to hospitals.
The environment and safety manager at NBL plant in Mbarara City, Mr Adam Wilson Emaru, said Covid-19 cases are on the rise in the country yet the taskforces are facing logistical challenges.
“We are putting hands together to facilitate the health workers who are actually supposed to move from their homes every day to attend to Covid-19 patients; we also want to facilitate the task forces in terms of movement from area to area,” he said.
NBL director David Valencia added that the donation will ease transportation of the Covid-19 taskforce teams, distribution of vaccines and contact tracing.
“Times such as these call for individuals, communities, public and private sectors to rally together in efforts to fight the fast-spreading disease and support each other. It shows the strength in the community,” he said.
Mr Valencia said the company will also support Covid-19 taskforces in Jinja, Kampala, and Buikwe.
Mbarara District deputy internal security officer Nicolas Tumwesigye, who represented the city resident commissioner, at the handover function, said security teams have been having challenges of fuel while implementing presidential directives in the city, which had increased complacency in the communities.
“Our good partners at Nile Breweries have really filled up a very big gap and we call upon other partners in the region to borrow a leaf,” he said.
Mr Tumwesigye said the fight against Covid-19 is everyone’s responsibility. “It is not a war of only the government but for all of us, both in forces, medical practitioners and even the business community,” he said.
Mr Tumwesigye said despite surging numbers of positive cases, there are people who are still taking Covid-19 as a joke.
“You find some people are not putting on masks and social distancing, and that is how they end up getting Covid-19, so our people still need a lot of sensitisation,” he said.
Currently, 37 Covid-19 patients are admitted to Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital.