At the Kenya-Uganda border towns of Malaba and Busia during the initial stages of Covid-19, queues of lorries stretched up to 65km as the Ugandan authorities imposed compulsory coronavirus tests on Kenyan lorry drivers before they entered the country.
Kampala implemented the measure in late April when it became clear that truck drivers were key vectors of transmission. Similar issues unfolded at busy border crossings across the six countries that make up the East African Community (EAC) as governments failed to harmonise preventative measures at the regional level.
At the Rwanda-Tanzania border crossing of Rusumo, for example, Tanzanian drivers were forced to hand cargo over to Rwandan counterparts who took it onwards to Kigali.
Read more here