Ebola epidemic in Uganda: No need for lockdown, President Museveni assures

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni yesterday ruled out the possibility of imposing restrictions on the movement of citizens in the fight against the Ebola virus epidemic affecting the country, judging that the authorities have the ability to control the health crisis.

Ugandan authorities announced that cases of the disease caused by the highly contagious virus were detected last week in Mubende, in the central part of the country of 45 million people.

By yesterday there had been 24 laboratory-verified cases and five confirmed deaths, Mr Museveni said during a live televised news conference.

Another 19 people, who were considered possible cases, are also dead, the head of state added, explaining, however, that they were buried without first being tested.

However, the president pledged that no lockdown will be imposed on the affected areas, assuring that the state apparatus is able to limit the spread of the virus, which is not transmitted through aerosols like the new coronavirus.

“We decided not to impose a restriction. It is not necessary,” said Mr Museveni.

“The government has the ability to control this outbreak, as it has in the past. There is no need for anxiety, panic, restrictions on movement or closure of public spaces,” he continued.

Six members of the health services — four doctors, an anesthesiologist, a medical student — have been infected, the Ugandan president said.

The disease caused by the Ebola virus is very often fatal. There are some experimental vaccines and drugs to prevent and treat the disease that causes dengue and is transmitted to humans from infected animals. Containing outbreaks of this virus is however difficult, above all in urban environments, while there are no vaccines or drugs for the so-called Sudan strain, one of the rarest, which is blamed for the current outbreak in Uganda.

Human-to-human transmission occurs through bodily fluids. The main symptoms are severe weakness, persistent high fever, vomiting, bleeding, diarrhea. Infected people are not contagious until after symptoms appear, after an incubation period ranging between 2 and 21 days.

Uganda has already experienced outbreaks of Ebola, a virus that has killed thousands of people across Africa since it was identified in 1976 in what was then Zaire, now DR Congo. The most recent in the country, in 2019, officially claimed the lives of five people.

RES-EMP

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