Ugandan Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda on Tuesday said a night curfew imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19 will be maintained despite pressure from parliament to have it revised.

Rugunda told parliament that the night curfew imposed in March last year will continue to be enforced between 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. daily throughout the country.

"The issues of curfew hours will be looked into in the context of protecting the lives of Ugandans considering that the pandemic is still with us and it is still affecting and killing our people," Rugunda.

"Projections indicate that we should not relax our guard because the number of positive cases reported has started unfortunately to increase, especially in urban areas, border districts and trading centers," he said.

The premier said this is coupled with the reported cases of new fast-spreading and possibly more deadly variants of COVID-19.

"In the meantime, the guidelines issued by the president and ministry of health remain in place," he said.

Lawmakers last week directed the Prime Minister to table a government statement on the curfew. The lawmakers want the government to relax some of the COVID-19 measures and night curfew to start from 11 p.m. amid an earlier reported decline of new infections and deaths in the country.