Health workers at Muyinga hospital thought of the COVID-19 test a little late, only a few hours before the death of N.R. nicknamed Nzr. He was a native of Tangara hill, Butihinda commune in Muyinga province and lived in the Swahili district of the province’s capital before he died. The truck driver was ill when he arrived from Tanzania.
N.R. arrived from Tanzania on Monday and died on Friday in Muyinga hospital. At his funeral on Saturday, physical distancing was mandatory at the Muslim cemetery on Kinyota hill, Muyinga commune and province, in northern Burundi.
Monday, 8 February 2021: N.R. arrives in Muyinga from Dar-Es-Salam on board a truck belonging to the company Interpetrol where he worked as a driver. This man, aged around forty, tells his relatives that he smells of malaria but continues his journey towards Bujumbura. The same day he returned to Muyinga and, as usual, parked the truck in a car park within the grounds of the UPRONA party headquarters. He then returned home but told his wife again that he had malaria. His wife then decided to accompany him to Muyinga hospital in the evening. They are given medication to treat the malaria and both return home.
Wednesday at around 1pm: The illness worsens and the patient is admitted to Muyinga Hospital.
Thursday: The patient lies on his bed without any consultation.
Friday, 12 February 2021, around 10am: the patient starts to have difficulty breathing. The medical team consults and decides to administer a COVID-19 test. The medical team tells his relatives that he is suffering from COVID-19. The patient is put on oxygen therapy and isolated. But he dies on the same Friday evening.
Saturday: N.R.’s relatives are asked to quarantine themselves at home for 14 days after the first COVID-19 test, which proves negative.
Failure to maintain quarantine worries relatives
N.R. leaves behind a wife and two children. His mother, sister and two children who attend basic school also live in the same house. All seven continue to receive guests. One of the relatives tells me that he is worried and announces that a second test is scheduled for Friday, 19/02/2021. This COVID-19 test is negative again for all seven people. In the meantime, sources at Muyinga hospital confirm to me that N.R. has been swept away by COVID-19.
Controversial screening in Kobero
The screening at the Burundian-Tanzanian border of Kobero had however given a negative result to COVID-19 according to the victim before his death, explains one of his relatives. There are grey areas in what they call screening. One day a policeman told me that the comings and goings on the Kobero border continue as normal and that those who have bribes go on without any interruption. He explained to me that those who are blocked for the COVID-19 test are the ones who have nothing in their pockets’, one of R.N.’s relatives told me.
In Burundi, it is very difficult to know the exact number of victims of COVID-19 because of the lack of transparency in the management of this coronavirus disease.
According to the Burundian government’s statistics, so far only three people have been killed by the Coronavirus in the country. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, was talking about ten deaths linked to this coronavirus disease as of 23 July 2020.
