Via PML Daily: Kampala, Wakiso at Ebola risk- Ministry of Health. Excerpt:
KAMPALA – Dr. Henry Mwebesa, the Director General, Ministry of Health has revealed that Uganda is at a very high risk of catching the deadly Ebola virus that is ravaging and has claimed lives in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mwebesa explained: “The latest information is that we have 344 cases of Ebola in DR Congo and this is a place that is very close to our borders. Initially, we were talking about 100kms, but of late it has come even closer to 50kms from our border and in fact, recently, we had two people that died exactly at the landing site of L. Albert on the other side of Congo.”
He made the remarks today during the third Grande Annual Doctors Conference held at Imperial Royale Hotel, Kampala.
While detailing the Ebola risk Uganda faces, Mwebesa pointed at Ugandans close to the Congo border, but warned that this shouldn’t make those far away from the border relaxed, as experts haven’t ruled out the risk those people in Kampala and Wakiso stand at contracting the virus, calling for more vigilant campaigns to avert the risk.
“Ebola doesn’t know borders so as a country we are at a very high risk. We had 202 deaths [in Congo] as of Thursday which is about 59%,” Mwebesa noted.
He stated that the Ministry has embarked on vigorous preventive measures to ensure Ebola doesn’t make its way into Uganda and assured Ugandans that on top of putting up treatment centres, the health teams have the ‘capacity’ to treat any Ebola case.
Mwebesa added: “We must develop a very high degree of suspicion because we may be focusing at the borders, but you know the airport is open and this puts areas of Kampala and Wakiso at a very high risk too. So you [doctors] may at any time be confronted by a case and you may be treating malaria when it’s actually Ebola.”
The Director-General also said that although the country has witnessed numerous false Ebola alerts since its outbreak in Congo, he deemed all these threats are ‘fake news’ asserting that the Ministry has tested over 300 cases, but all these have turned out as negative and no case has been registered in Uganda.
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