Experts have warned of a looming outbreak of communicable diseases after towering heaps of uncollected solid waste dwarfed vendors in markets, choked shoppers and spilled to block some busy streets across Kampala’s five divisions.
Public health academics and practitioners put residents of Uganda’s capital on alert that the occurrences of cholera, dysentery and diarrhoea were more likely after City Hall stopped collecting garbage because it has nowhere to dump it.
This followed the collapse last Saturday of Kiteezi landfill-turned-dumpsite in Wakiso District, killing dozens of residents, and the last-minute revocation by Entebbe Municipality of a permission that Katabi Town Council granted Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to use its dumpsite.
Entebbe Mayor Fabrice Rulinda on Wednesday led a charge to turn away a column of loaded garbage trucks emblazoned with KCCA’s official red-yellow-green colours, plunging City Hall into a deeper hole of piling waste.
“In addition to cholera and diarrhoea, you are likely to see diseases [like eye infections] caused by house flies that are attracted by rotten foods multiplying. The smell from rotten garbage is likely to affect people with respiratory conditions such as asthma patients,” warned Prof Fred Ssengooba, a public health expert.
