Uganda warns on contact as deadly Ebola reported in capital

KAMPALA – Uganda’s president yesterday warned against shaking hands and other physical contact after the first reported death from the deadly Ebola virus in the capital Kampala.

“The Ministry of Health are tracing all the people who have had contact with the victims,” Yoweri Museveni said in a state broadcast, adding that 14 people had died in total since Ebola broke out in western Uganda three weeks ago.
One person believed to have contracted the virus in western Uganda was reported dead in Kampala’s Mulago Hospital, Museveni said, calling on people not to shake hands to avoid the spread of the virus.
“Ebola spreads by contact when you contact each other physically ... avoid shaking of hands, because that can cause contact through sweat, which can cause problems,” Museveni said.
“Do not take on burying somebody who has died from symptoms that look like Ebola – instead call health workers because they know how to do it ... avoid promiscuity because this sickness can also go through sex,” he added.
Seven doctors and 13 health workers at Mulago Hospital are in quarantine after “at least one or two cases” were taken there, with one later dying, he said.
The latest outbreak started in Uganda’s western Kibale district, around 200 kilometres from Kampala, and around 50 kilometres from the border with Democratic Republic of Congo.
The fatal case in Kampala was a health worker who “had attended to the dead at Kagadi hospital” in Kibale, Health Minister Christine Ondoa told reporters.
She is believed to have travelled independently to Kampala – possibly on public transport – after her three-month old baby died, Ondoa added.
Results of tests were still awaited, but it is “presumed” she died of Ebola, said Dennis Lwamafa, Uganda’s commissioner for disease control.
“I appeal to you to first of all report all cases which appear to be like Ebola, and these are high fever, vomiting, sometimes diarrhoea, and with bleeding,” Museveni added.
“When you handle this case well you can eliminate Ebola quickly.”
According to experts, despite being extremely virulent the disease is containable because it kills its victims faster than it can spread to new ones.
It has a fatality ratio of between 23 and 90 per cent, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The rare haemorrhagic disease, named after a small river in DR Congo, killed 37 people in western Uganda in 2007 and at least 170 in the north of the country in 2000.
However, Museveni said that the virus had not been immediately identified this time, resulting in a delay.
“The bleeding which normally accompanies Ebola did not take place initially among these patients,” he said, adding that health workers at first did not therefore realise what the problem was.
Ebola is characterised by the sudden onset of fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, often followed by vomiting, diarrhoea and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding, according to the WHO.
It spreads by direct contact with the blood or other body fluids of infected persons. – Nampa-AFP

---