Since September 20, the health authorities in Uganda declared having detected an Ebola outbreak and almost a month later the government imposed a confinement on the population living in the districts of Mubende and Kasandaboth located in the center of the country where 132 cases of confirmed infections and 53 deaths due to the virus have been registered.
About, Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda, chose to extend the isolation for another three weeks, this with the aim of preventing the virus from spreading to other areas.
“To prevent the further spread of Ebola within these districts and to protect the rest of the country from continued exposure, the measures enacted will be extended for a further 21 days,” Minister of Health Jane Ruth Aceng said in a statement.
The restrictions in the risk areas include any movement in and out of these districts, a curfew between 7:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., and the closure of entertainment venues, as well as places of worship. However, schools remain open.
According to official data, the number of districts affected by the disease has increased and there are now seven, in addition to the capital, Kampala.
However, the speed of infections seems to have slowed down, since from October 31 to November 5 the reported infections went from 130 to 132.
The Ministry of Health announced this week that it is prepared to test three vaccines developed to combat the unusual strain from Sudan, causing the current outbreak in Uganda and for which there is no approved vaccine.unlike the Zaire strain, recorded in epidemics in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and in other countries.
The authorities will evaluate the effectiveness of these three drugs: the one from the University of Oxford (United Kingdom) and the Americans from the Sabin Vaccine Institute and the pharmaceutical company Merck.
It should be noted that the Sudan strain is not only less transmissible, but also has lower mortality than the Zaire strain.
Countries such as the DRC, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Somalia are on alert to prevent a possible spread of the virus.
Discovered in 1976 in the DRC -then called Zaire-, Ebola is a serious, often fatal disease, that affects humans and other primates and It is spread by direct contact with the blood and body fluids of infected people or animals.
It causes severe bleeding and its first symptoms are sudden and high fever, severe weakness and muscle, headache and throat pain, as well as vomiting.
The virus ravaged several West African countries from 2014 to 2016, when 11,300 people died and there were more than 28,500 cases.