Over 8-9 drowning deaths cases are registered daily in Uganda totaling to an annual number of 3,000 according to Makerere University School of Public Health Center for Prevention of Trauma, Injury and Disability (MAKSPH-CTRIAD) reports.
These numbers corroborate with the 2024-2025 World Health Organisation (WHO) 300,000 deaths registered, and in Uganda, out of 100,000 deaths of people residing in lakeside fishing communities, 502 deaths are caused by drowning, making it the highest cause of death in these areas.
It is believed that, not all drowning cases are registered with authorities, due to several reasons including lack of ground dependable personnel to link the local communities with the concerned authorities, causing data gaps in regards to actual statistics and information of death.
It is upon this background, that the government of Uganda launched a five district prevention, monitoring and evaluation project, where Village Health Team members are being empowered with skills and smartphones that are connected to the ministry of health data system and able to send any drowning cases from where they are.
During the Media Training on Uganda’s National Drowning Prevention Strategy at ICT Hub in Kampala, organized by Global Health Advocacy Incubator, Otto Businge, Makerere University, School of Public Health Center for Prevention of Trauma, Injury and Disability (C-TRIAD) revealed that Soroti, Ntungamo, Mayuge, Buike and Serere are the five districts that have for a year now been running a pilot project being funded by Bloomberg and being implemented by Makerere School of Public Health.
“These VHTs have smartphones provided by the government and we’re leveraging on their services where they routinely capture health data on addition to health facilities data, but drowning related data can be captured and transmitted.” Otto told journalists.
“We didn’t have a system that provides data about drowning and with the increasing number of cases, this is an opportunity to cover these data gaps because apparently, we can’t tell actual numbers of drowning deaths that occurred yesterday or last month to be referenced, inform policies, regulations and interventions.” Otto added.
Much as many think, drowning majorly occur in water bodies like rivers, lakes, ponds, swamps and wells, Makerere School of Public Health reports further reveal that, many are dying in swimming Pools, buckets, Water tanks, and road side trenches.
Among the people aged between 1 and 4yrs, drowning is registered as the 4th leading cause of deaths with 24%, 3rd in deaths of people between 5 and 14 yrs of age at 19% and 12th cause of deaths aged 15 and 29 yrs.
This means, deaths of people between 1 and 14 years of age are due to drowning, though lower than other diseases and causes, making one of the major killers of children.
Much as there have been a decrease in global drowning rates overtime, Uganda remains a critical, high-level, or rising crisis in many areas, particularly among fishing communities and children.
Makerere University School of Public Health reports and WHO further reveal that primarily 5–25 years; children are highly vulnerable. and at a high risk, with 81% (8 out of 10) are males.
By; Mukose Arnold Anthony,
Digitalk TV (Programmes Director, Journalist)
mukosearnanth@gmail.com, +256701800212