Block Your Nostrils, Uganda Advises Citizens on Coronavirus as Locusts Attack

The government has advised Ugandans on how to get around when the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) finally reaches Uganda. 

People have been told to block their nostrils with their fingers as a way of preventing the infection and spread of the virus.

Over 40,000 people have so far contracted the virus on mainland China and deaths are more than 1000. The virus, first detected in China’s Hubei province, has since spread to over 20 countries.

The national treasury has said there is no money to spend on face masks.

“Our coffers have been constrained by the fight against the desert locust which invaded us as a few days ago,” a representative of the Ministry of Finance said at a press conference today. 

“We have had to dispatch thousands of soldiers armed with stones, clubs and whistles to chase away those dangerous insects. We have spent 15 billion shillings in just two days. You can imagine what the cost will be in the end,” he added.

The representative of the Ministry of Health said that blocking one’s nostrils was more effective in preventing the contraction of the virus than wearing a face mask.

“That virus only enters a person through the nostrils so if you block them you have blocked it. We have done research and we are sure that method works,” she said.

The treasury added that a lot of money had already been spent to secure millions of cameras to capture LGBT people and those who promote the practice of labia pulling. The cameras are to be installed within the bushes of central and southern Uganda to catch “labia pullers". Cameras are also to secretly be installed in houses which have only single sex occupants to capture LGBTs.

In Uganda LGBT practices are outlawed while a decree is being prepared to ban labia elongation, a practice common among some Bantu groups. Communities which practice it say labia elongation enhances sexual pleasure.

“We want to balance these things. Why should a girl have things which are longer than those of her friend? This is unnatural,” the Gender ministry’s representative said.

Sources say that the proposal to stop women from “pulling” stemmed from a challenge by a Woman Parliamentary representative from the Kapchorwa region in eastern Uganda.

The MP, in defence of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) – the cutting of the clitoris from a woman’s private parts – reportedly told the President that it was unfair to force the Sabiny to stop “cutting” while the Bantu continued to pull.

“The Bantu pull, the Sabiny cut. It is unfair to stop one group when both practices involve alteration of the vagina,” the MP reportedly told the President.

 This is a scene in William Odinga’s fiction film “My Lovely Country”