This archive report was first published on 13 May 2020.
As the coronavirus pandemic spreads across East Africa, a growing concern is emerging: the region's trucking corridors.
Every day, hundreds of trucks fan out from the main ports in Kenya and Tanzania, carrying essential goods to the landlocked countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan.
With most East African countries under strict restrictions to curb the virus, truck drivers are among the few allowed to circulate, ferrying goods across the region.
However, border testing has revealed a high number of cases among the drivers, sparking alarm over their potential to be superspreaders.
"It is clear... the remaining sources of the disease are the truck drivers within Uganda and the region," Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said earlier this month.
Uganda has carried out thousands of tests on truck drivers, with 51 found to be carrying the virus, out of a total of 126 recorded cases.
Other countries in the region, including Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have also reported cases among truck drivers.
Osborne Ndalo, a clinician in Mombasa, said one Kenyan driver who tested positive at the Ugandan border had infected a lover at a truck stop in Kenya, as well as up to three others he interacted with along the road.
"What makes the drivers a risk group is mobility... They come into contact with people from different regions, from different backgrounds," Ndalo told AFP.
Uganda's health services director, Dr. Henry Mwebesa, said the sex trade was an added risk, as infected truck drivers could infect sex workers and then spread the virus to the surrounding communities.
"An infected truck driver can infect a sex worker by mere contact, and the virus spreads not only among the drivers but the communities around too if they get in touch with contaminated surfaces," Mwebesa said.
Kenya has now ordered drivers passing in either direction across the border to obtain a certificate proving they have tested negative for the virus, and undergo a nasal swab test every two weeks.
As the crisis deepens, East African countries are implementing new measures at their borders, including testing regimes, mandatory stops, and disinfection of vehicles.
Uganda has banned drivers from pulling in at traditional stopover points, designating mandatory stops where they are registered and tested, and their vehicles disinfected.
The country is also mulling implementing a relay system at the border, where a driver would hand over to a Ugandan driver at the border.
Rwanda has already put the system in place, with all trucks offloaded and sanitised before being handed over to Rwandan truck drivers.
However, the measures have disrupted trade and led to days-long queues and protests at the borders.
