Uganda said on Monday it expects to end the Ebola virus outbreak that emerged late last year and has killed at least 56 people.
If no new cases are reported on Tuesday, the health ministry said it will officially declare the end of the outbreak on Wednesday.
According to the World Health Organization, the outbreak of the disease ends when there are no new cases for 42 consecutive days – twice the incubation period of Ebola.
142 confirmed cases of Ebola
Health ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Ainebyoona said at an invitation to journalists that a “declaration ceremony” would take place in the central district of Mubende, the epicenter of the outbreak.
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Since Ugandan authorities declared the latest outbreak in Mubende on September 20, the East African country has registered 142 confirmed cases and 56 deaths, with the disease spreading to the capital Kampala.
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The last confirmed patient was discharged from the hospital on November 30, according to health officials.
The outbreak was caused by a strain of the Sudanese virus, for which there is currently no vaccine.
But three vaccine candidates – one developed by the University of Oxford and the Jenner Institute in England, another by the Sabin Vaccine Institute in the United States, and a third by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) – are being tested in Uganda.
Outbreaks are difficult to contain
Ebola is a viral haemorrhagic fever that is often fatal. The disease is named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where it was discovered in 1976.
Human transmission is through body fluids, with the main symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhea.
Outbreaks are difficult to contain, especially in urban environments.
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An infected person is not contagious until symptoms appear, which is after an incubation period of between two and 21 days.
Uganda, which shares a border with the DRC, has experienced several Ebola outbreaks, most recently in 2019 when at least five people died.
The worst epidemic in West Africa between 2013 and 2016 killed more than 11,300 people. DRC has experienced more than a dozen epidemics, the most of which killed 2,280 people in 2020.
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