The deadly Ebola virus is rampant again, currently in East African Uganda. At least 109 people are now infected there, and at least 30 people have died as a result of the infection, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng announced on Wednesday, according to the Reuters news agency.
Fifteen of the confirmed cases involved health workers, six of whom had died, she said at a news conference. Aceng said five treatment centers are operational and a sixth is being set up.
The capital Kampala is particularly affected. On Monday, the AP news agency reported a “worrying increase in Ebola cases”.
To make matters worse, the circulating Ebola virus is the Sudanese strain, for which there is no approved vaccine — unlike the more common Zairean strain identified in recent outbreaks in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Fears that Ebola could spread further from the outbreak’s epicenter forced authorities to impose a lockdown, including night-time curfews, in two of the five counties where cases have been reported. The measures came after a man infected with Ebola was treated in Kampala and died in a hospital there, the AP reports.
Meanwhile, medical professionals are also calling for a lockdown for Kampala. The Uganda Medical Association has recommended that strict measures, including a lockdown, should be considered for Kampala to avoid a spike in Ebola cases in the country, Ugandan newspapers Red Pepper and The Independent report .
The President of the Uganda Medical Association, Dr. Samuel Oledo, in a radio interview, said the government was sitting on a time bomb and warned that the worst is yet to come if nothing is done quickly to curb the spread of the virus.
According to a report in the local newspaper “Monitor”, the government does not want to take this step. Information Minister Chris Baryomunsi said there was no intention of imposing a lockdown in Kampala.
Africa’s top public health authority said Thursday that the Ebola outbreak in Uganda “is not getting out of hand” — despite an increase in cases. “The Ebola outbreak in Uganda is not getting out of control…it’s still under control,” Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, acting director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at an online briefing.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), expressed concern in a series of tweets on Wednesday. “Tackling Ebola in urban areas can be complex and requires coordinated and sustained efforts to disrupt transmission.”
According to its own statements, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is unable to provide sufficient help due to financial bottlenecks. UNHCR is unable to source enough soap and toiletries to fight the deadly disease, the organization said on Monday.
An experimental vaccine is soon to be used in Uganda to help combat the outbreaks, the AP reports. Hundreds of thousands of trial vaccine doses could potentially be used, said Dr. Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam, the WHO representative in Uganda, the AP.
“We’re getting closer and closer to using vaccines,” he said. “This is a study. This is just another tool we’re going to try.” Vaccines developed by the US-based Sabin Vaccine Institute and Oxford University “are ready to be shipped” to Uganda, which will finalize protocols for the study before the National Drug Authority grants import permits, he said.
Ebola is transmitted through direct physical contact and often causes high fever and internal bleeding. Uganda reported an outbreak of Ebola on September 20, days after the contagious disease began spreading in a rural farming community.
Uganda has had multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that killed more than 200 people. From 2014 to 2016 there had been the largest recorded outbreak of the virus infection in West Africa with more than 11,000 deaths, the highest death toll to date from the disease.
Sources: Reuters, AP, DPA news agencies; “Red Pepper”, “The Independent”, “Monitor”
