A top World Health Organization official in Africa said last week that Uganda’s Ebola outbreak was “evolving rapidly”.
A top World Health Organization official in Africa said last week that Uganda’s Ebola outbreak was “evolving rapidly”.
Ugandan officials have reported 11 more Ebola cases in the capital since October 21, a worrying rise in infections that has just ended a month after the outbreak was declared In a remote part of an East African country.
Nine more people in the Kampala metropolitan area tested positive for Ebola on Sunday, in addition to two others on Friday, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng said on Monday.
A top World Health Organization official in Africa said last week that Uganda’s Ebola outbreak was “evolving rapidly,” describing a challenging situation for health workers.
Ugandan health officials have confirmed 75 cases of Ebola since September 20, including 28 deaths. There are 19 active cases.
The official numbers do not include people who probably died of Ebola before the outbreak was confirmed in a farming community about 150 kilometers (93 miles) west of Kampala.
Fears that Ebola may spread far from the epicenter of the outbreak have forced officials to enforce an ongoing lockdown, including night curfews, on two of the five districts reporting Ebola cases. A man infected with Ebola sought treatment in Kampala and measures were taken after he died in a hospital there.
The nine new cases reported on Monday follow a similar pattern as they are all contacts of an Ebola-infected patient who traveled from an Ebola hotspot and sought treatment at Kampala’s top public hospital, known as Mulago. Is known.
There is no proven vaccine for the Sudan strain of Ebola that is spreading in Uganda.
According to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ugandan authorities had documented more than 1,800 Ebola contacts as of Thursday, of whom 747 had completed 21 days of surveillance for possible signs of the disease, which could be attributed to viral hemorrhagic fever. appears as.
Contact tracing is important to prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as Ebola.
Ebola is spread through contact with bodily fluids or contaminants of an infected person. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle aches, and sometimes internal and external bleeding.
Scientists do not know the natural reserves of Ebola, but they suspect that the first person infected with this outbreak acquired the virus by coming into contact with an infected animal or by eating its raw meat. Ugandan authorities are still investigating the source of the current outbreak.
There have been several Ebola outbreaks in Uganda, including one in 2000 that killed more than 200 people. The 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people, the largest number of deaths from the disease.
Ebola was discovered in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in South Sudan and the Congo, where it occurred in a village near the Ebola River, after which the disease is named.