Key Highlights
- Uganda will host a regional meeting with CDC and WHO on the Ebola virus outbreak.
- Forty-three cases have been confirmed.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that Uganda will host a ministerial meeting next week on the outbreak of the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus, which has no proven vaccine and has created alarm in the East Africa region.
Acting director Ahmed Ogwell told journalists that the three countries that suffered the devastating West Africa outbreak of Ebola in 2014-16, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, are invited to the 12th October meeting.
The ongoing Ebola outbreak in central Uganda has a 69% case fatality rate. Ogwell said the rate is “very high.” Four health workers who have died are among the 30 people. There have been 43 confirmed cases. None have been reported in the capital, Kampala.
Ogwell said the exposure of health workers was at the start of the outbreak “when we did not know what we were dealing with.” He disagreed with the suggestion that the infections indicated the outbreak was getting out of hand.
He said over 860 active contacts had been listed, and at least 78% of them are being monitored, a situation that has almost doubled from a week ago.
The Africa CDC said it had procured 20,000 test kits that should arrive early next week for the region, and it will ship stockpiles of personal protective equipment next week.
Ebola can be hard to identify at first since fever is also a symptom of malaria. Ebola, which manifests as viral hemorrhagic fever, is spread through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials. Symptoms include fever, diarrhea, vomiting, muscle pain and, at times, internal and external bleeding.
Uganda has had various Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2,000 that killed over 200 people.
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