Gulu District Hospital is to establish a COVID-19 Children Center.

By; Our reporter

15^th July 2020

Gulu District COVID-19 Task Force is seeking to create a holding centre at Gulu Region Referral Hospital for treating children infected with COVID-19.

Dozens of breastfeeding mothers who tested positive for the virus disease are undergoing treatment at the facility. Already one of the six infants aged between six months and three years accompanying their mothers has tested positive for the virus.

However, the recently expanded multi-drug resistant Tuberculosis ward at the hospital from 12 to 74-bed capacity COVID-19 treatment unit did not factor a holding centre for the children infected with the virus.
Bishop Loum Janani, the in-charge of integrated case management at the hospital and head of surveillance committee under the Task Force revealed that treating such infants alongside adult patients is a challenge for the facility.

Janani says that currently the treatment unit has admitted a COVID-19 positive couple with their one-year-old daughter, yet it is improper and not recommended for adults to share such treatment facility with children. In May, Gulu Regional Referral Hospital admitted and also treated a four-year-old child with the virus.