Governor Sospeter Ojaamong wants the government to suspend the use of trucks to ferry cargo.
The county chief says cargo truck drivers are emerging as spreaders of coronavirus and adopting railway and water transport will curtail the virus' spread.
Ojaamong said activating the Kenya-Uganda railway line, which has been dormant for decades, will reduce human activity that aids coronavirus transmission.
“I am in consultation with the National Government to prevail upon the Ugandan government to consider rerouting all transit cargo to the old railway line for containers from the Port of Mombasa to Kampala, Uganda, and other Great Lakes Region countries, with all fuel transported through the Port of Kisumu, and the railway line to Uganda and Tanzania respectively,” he said Saturday.
“This will be a stop-gap measure to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, which continues to wreak havoc across the world. The long queues of trucks in Malaba that stretch over 30 kilometres and over 10 kilometres in Busia are causing dangers to county residents, who are at risk of contracting the coronavirus.”
Among people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in Uganda are Kenyan truck drivers who ferrying cargo to the East African Community member country.
On April 19, a Kenyan long distance truck driver who had crossed the border into the landlocked nation via Malaba tested positive for the respiratory disease. He is presently being treated at the Entebbe Hospital.
On Friday, when Uganda reported 11 new Covid-19 cases, five of them were Kenyan truck drivers who had crossed the border through Busia and Malaba.
“Uganda has reported a few cases of Kenyan truck drivers testing positive to Covid-19 after passing through Busia and Malaba, thus heightening fears of the pandemic striking the county if no urgent measures are taken to find a lasting solution to the traffic pile up,” Ojaamong said.
Since Kenyan and Uganda closed their common border on March 23 and March 22 respectively, there has been a long queue of trucks ferrying cargo into Uganda in Busia and Malaba, raising concern over the safety of locals living along the Bungoma-Malaba and Kisumu-Busia highways.
