Ebola epidemic now contained, WHO says

Although four more people have died from the deadly Ebola virus in the northern Ugandan district of Gulu, the epidemic has now been contained, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday. “The more recent cases in Gulu arose from victims who had already contracted the disease but were undiscovered by the authorities,” WHO Country Representative for Uganda, Dr Oladapo Walker, told IRIN. To date, the epidemic has claimed 149 lives out of 357 reported cases. Most of the cases arose in Gulu where the disease first broke out and where 140 people have died from the virus. No new cases have been reported in the districts of Mbarara and Masindi where incidents of Ebola have also been confirmed. The European Union has announced the allocation of US $312,000 through its humanitarian aid office (ECHO) for surveillance and control of the disease, case management of Ebola patients and public education measures. Dr Walker qualified the international community’s response to the crisis as a “great success”. The Ebola virus causes the victim to die from massive haemorrhaging. In areas of Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it first struck, mortality rates ranged between 80-90 percent, whilst in Uganda, the mortality rates remained around 30 percent. “The credit for the low mortality rate of the Ebola epidemic in Uganda goes to the national task force for putting up the idea of active searches for potential cases,” Dr Walker said. He also praised the Ugandan health ministry for setting up the task force and responding rapidly to the crisis. The national task force is constituted by WHO, the Atlanta-based Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the Ugandan health ministry and non-governmental organisations. The Ebola virus is transmitted through blood and bodily fluids and is highly contagious. In Kenya, fears that Ugandans from the Gulu district, attending a conference in Nairobi, may have bypassed screenings led to their deportation back to Uganda. One of the evicted Ugandans, the MP for Gulu district, Norbert Mao, accused the Ugandan government of influencing the cancellation of the conference, held by Acholi people of northern Uganda as a discussion forum on regional peace, the Kenyan ‘Sunday Nation’ newspaper reported at the weekend. However, Uganda’s Minister for Regional Cooperation Amama Mbabazi denied the allegations, emphasising that the his government recognised the conference. The convention was shifted to Nairobi only after Tanzania, fearing Ebola, prevented it from being held in the northern town of Arusha.