Uganda on Wednesday declared an end to an outbreak of the Ebola virus that emerged nearly four months ago and killed 55 people.
“We have successfully controlled the Ebola outbreak in Uganda,” Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng said at a ceremony in the central district of Mubende, where the disease was first detected in September.
The move was confirmed in a statement published by the World Health Organization (WHO), whose leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for a “robust and comprehensive response” in the East African country to the much feared haemorrhagic fever.
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Aceng said January 11 marked 113 days since the outbreak, which also spread to the capital Kampala.
According to WHO criteria, the outbreak of the disease is officially over when there are no new cases for 42 consecutive days – twice the incubation period of the virus.
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“Uganda ended the Ebola outbreak quickly by implementing key control measures such as surveillance, contact and infection tracing, prevention and control,” a WHO statement quoted the minister as saying.
“As we expand our efforts to provide a robust response in the nine affected counties, the magic bullet is our community understanding the importance of doing what is needed to stop this outbreak, and taking action.”
The two districts at the epicenter of the outbreak, Mubende and Kassanda, were locked down for two months until mid-December, but the government has not implemented similar measures nationwide.
The WHO said there were a total of 142 confirmed cases, 55 confirmed deaths and 87 recovered patients, with children among the victims.
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The Ugandan outbreak is caused by the Sudanese Ebola virus, one of the six species of the Ebola virus and there is currently no confirmed vaccine.
Three candidate vaccines – 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.
– ‘Dark Shadows’ lifted –
“Uganda has shown that Ebola can be defeated when all systems work together, from having an alert system, to finding and treating people affected and in contact, to getting the full participation of affected communities in the response,” said Tedros. in the WHO statement.
The last confirmed patient was discharged from the hospital on November 30, according to health officials.
Two months ago, it seemed that Ebola would cast a dark shadow over the country until 2023, as the outbreak reached major cities such as Kampala and Jinja, but this victory began the year with a note of great hope for Africa. ” said the WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti.
Aceng said the outbreak is the seventh outbreak in Uganda, and the fifth caused by the Sudanese virus.
“The source of this outbreak like many others is still unknown,” he said at the ceremony.
The Ebola outbreak
Ebola is named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire, where it was discovered in 1976.
The previous outbreak in Uganda, which shares a border with the DRC, was in 2019 when at least five people died.
Human transmission is through body fluids, with the main symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhea.
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Outbreaks are difficult to contain, especially in urban environments.
An infected person is not contagious until symptoms appear, which is after an incubation period of between two and 21 days.
The most dangerous epidemic occurred in West Africa between 2013 and 2016, which 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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