The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Thursday said Uganda will host a ministerial meeting next week on the Ebola virus outbreak, reported The Africa News.
The Africa CDC acting director Ahmed Ogwell told reporters that the three countries that were the worst sufferers during the devastating West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2014-16, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, had also been invited to the October 12 meeting.
Ogwell said that the current Ebola outbreak in central Uganda has a 69% case fatality rate, which is deemed “very high.”
10 health workers are among the 30 people who have died since the outbreak was declared on September 20. There have been 43 confirmed cases. The capital city of Kampala has not reported any cases so far.
Ogwell said the exposure of health workers was at the beginning of the outbreak when they were not aware of what they were dealing with. He dismissed the suggestion that the infections signaled the outbreak was getting out of hand.
He said more than 860 active contacts have been traced and listed and at least 78% of them are being monitored.
The Africa CDC said it has arranged for 20,000 test kits that are expected to arrive early next week for the region, and it will ship personal protective equipment next week.
In related news, the United States has announced that it will begin redirecting travelers from Uganda to five airports to screen for Ebola, as the East African country grapples with an outbreak of a strain of virus for which there is no approved vaccine.
Ebola is spread through contact with bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.
Uganda has witnessed multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that killed more than 200 people.
