A five-year-old boy’s leg has been amputated after he was injected with a wrong drug thought to treat syphilis.
Robert Tugume, a resident of Kiryanga village in Kiryanga Sub-county, Kibaale District, was according to her mother, Ms Penina Tuhaise, taken to a clinic by his father after he developed syphilis-like sores on the legs last Thursday.

Tugume’s father rushed the child to a private clinic owned by one of the health workers attached to Kiryanga Health Centre II on the same day where the kid was injected with penicillin G Benzathine injection.

Talking to Daily Monitor on Tuesday, Tugume’s mother said after the injection, her son was the following day feeling a lot of pain and his body got swolen. “My child’s legs became cold and paralysed; the skin turned black and looked like he was burnt. 
He (Tugume) later developed a swelling on the part of his buttocks where he was injected. When we took him back to the health worker, he refused to attend to him,” said Ms Tuhaise.

Efforts to get a comment from the in charge of Kiryanga Health Centre II were futile as his phones were off. The mother added that she was advised by the residents to take the child to Hoima Regional Referral Hospital where his leg was amputated on Monday.

Dr Ian Asiimwe, a surgeon at the hospital who operated on Tugume said, “He [Tugume] underwent a successful leg amputation surgery and his condition will improve.”

Asked whether he got any referral from Kiryanga Health Centre II, Dr Asiimwe said, “No, we handled the boy basing on the complaints from the mother but we also found out that the boy could have got a wrong treatment.”