Coronavirus tests cause long tailbacks at Kenya-Uganda border

Lorry drivers are complaining of long waiting times at the Kenya-Uganda border as both countries insist on mandatory testing for the coronavirus.

According to local station Citizen TV, the queue on the Kenyan side of the border stretched back 30km on Sunday.

Both Kenya and Uganda are each other’s largest trading partners, and have been keen to keep activity flowing throughout the pandemic.

Lorry drivers are one of the few groups of people that are allowed to move across East Africa, but tighter checks and mandatory testing at border posts have slowed their work to a standstill.

Because of the region’s experience with HIV, they knew lorry drivers would be a high-risk group.

At the height of the spread of HIV in the 1980s and 1990s, studies of a trucking route from the Kenya's port city of Mombasa into DR Congo's interior showed that many drivers and their crew had multiple sexual partners along the way.

Clinics and services were soon established along that route providing HIV prevention and treatment.

Eight drivers from Kenya have recently tested positive for the coronavirus in Uganda, highlighting the risk they present to both themselves and others when crossing borders.

Policymakers are trying to think of new ways to minimise the risk of cross-border trade.

Kenya proposed relay driving, where lorry drivers would hand their vehicles over to their Ugandan counterparts at the border, a policy already underway in Rwanda.

[Photo: NMG]