New Vision (Kampala)
11 December 2007
THE is no Ebola outside of Bundibugyo district, the health ministry said yesterday. Suspected cases in 10 other districts, including Kasese and Kabarole, were not Ebola according to the test results, health state minister Dr. Emmanuel Otaala and the head of Health Services, Dr. Sam Zaramba told journalists in Kampala.
However, 60% of patients tested for Ebola in Bundibugyo were positive, Otaala added.
Although the death toll has climbed to 30 and the infection to 116 cases, all in Bundibugyo, Otaala and Zaramba said the outbreak seemed to have peaked.
"In the next three weeks, we should see a downward trend," said Zaramba.
He, however, cautioned that everybody in the country should be alert.
The ministry has discouraged gatherings in Bundibugyo and the surrounding districts.
Zaramba also noted that Ebola deaths could have occurred before the Government took notice because the ministry started recording cases after the tests returned positive results.
He said Ebola cannot be contracted by being in a room with an Ebola patient except through contact with body fluids of an infected person. The virus, he added, cannot be spread through dry body fluids or touching money from an infected person because it dies within 20 minutes outside the body.
Meanwhile, Masaka Hospital last evening reported a suspected Ebola case, which had been referred from Kyanamukaka health centre. District authorities cautioned travellers on the Masaka highway not to stop for roasted meat at Kyabakuza, Lukaya, Mbizinya, Lyantonde and Kyazanga towns.
Health minister Dr. Stephen Mallinga yesterday visited Bundibugyo to assess the situation. He said brain-drain was affecting the health sector and about 200 Ugandan doctors were working elsewhere.
In Kibaale district, Kyaterekera, Ndaiga, Kitebere, Rwebigongoro Kamina and Kamagali markets were closed and public gatherings banned.
In Mbarara, travellers on public service vehicles are to be disinfected. The director of health services, Dr. Amooti Kaguna, said the passengers' shoes and hands would be sprayed.
He said Kasese and Kabarole, which border Bundibugyo, were already doing so. Kaguna said grasshopper traders who travel from Mbarara to Kasese at night should stop because they may spread Ebola.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200712120023.html