Health ministry warns against forgery of COVID-19 certificates

The Ministry of Health has warned Ugandans against the use of forged COVID-19 test certificates, noting that the systems at the airport will easily detect them and the culprits will face the law.

"The fact that we were able to arrest the suspects is enough evidence that we are vigilant. We want to warn those who want to use fake certificates to travel that our system will get them," Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the ministry's publicist, said.

On Sunday, airport security arrested 23 travellers after they were found with forged COVID-19 negative certificates.

Authorities at the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said although this was the first highest single day record of forgeries, they have been getting forgery cases since the airport opened at the beginning of the month.

Forgery cases

Fred Enanga, the Police spokesperson, said the force is following three scenarios where a group of those arrested could have been hoodwinked by the testing centres.

"We have a group which appears to have been victimised and another which knowingly carried out the forgery," he said.

Enanga said the victimized group followed all the COVID-19 testing procedures.

"This group went to the testing centres and paid money. They followed the procedures, were given the results and they moved with them to the airport. Upon thorough verification, they were found to be fake and it was not their problem," he said.

The second scenario, Enanga said, is of another group that purportedly undertook rapid tests and were given certificates that were later found to be fake.

The last scenario is of three travellers who did not take the tests but bought fake certificates. This group's file has been forwarded to the resident state attorney for confirmation of charges before they are arraigned in the courts of law. Enanga said they are also waiting for the opinion of the state attorney on how to proceed with the other groups.

"We may set them free if they agree to turn into state witnesses," he said.

Enanga told New Vision that investigations into the matter are still ongoing. The Police is investigating, among other things, the testing centres involved in the issuance and sale of fake certificates.

QR code

Ainebyoona said the arrests were made possible by the unique QR code that every genuine test certificate bears.

The code, he explained, is scanned using a system at the airport and if it is genuine, it will reveal when the test was done, where it was done and the outcomes.

"Some of the people arrested tried to edit the code, but when it was exposed to the airport system, it could not link to the database," he said.

Accredited institutions

Uganda has about 25 accredited COVID-19 laboratories. These include Uganda Virus Research Institute, Central Public Health Laboratories, Makerere University School of Public Health laboratory, Mobile laboratories at Mutukula, Adjumani and Tororo. Others are Infectious Disease Institute, Mildmay Uganda Hospital, Lancet Laboratory, Medipal Hospital and the Uganda Cancer Institute.

Other accredited centres are MBN Clinic, UN-IOM Lab, Mbarara University, Mbarara Epi-Centre, UVRI Plague lab, Muni and Gulu universities, IDRC-Tororo, Fort Portal Hospital, Victoria Hospital, Makerere University Walter Reed Project-Mulago, COVAB Labs and Microhaems Test and Fly laboratory.

There are also several COVID-19 sample collection centres that have been mapped out to pick samples and take them to government laboratories for testing.

However, Ainebyoona said some of the centres had started abusing the process by charging Ugandans higher than what the Government set — $65 (sh250,000). He said this has forced the ministry to halt the process of accreditation sample collection centres.

Although the Government has a standard price for a COVID-19 test, private testing centres set their own prices and, therefore, the fee may differ depending on the testing centre one goes to.