The Ugandan health ministry has stepped up its Ebola response plan as the number of cases continue to increase across the country, reported The Reuters.
On Wednesday, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng said the number of confirmed Ebola cases in Uganda has risen to 109 and30 people have lost their lives since the onset of the Ebola outbreak on September 20. She added that the government was setting up an additional treatment centre.
During a news conference, Aceng said fifteen of the confirmed cases were among health workers, of whom six had died. She announced that five treatment centres were operational and a sixth was being set up.
“The Ministry of Health with support from partners is setting up an additional treatment facility in Mulago sports field,” the Ugandan health minister said, adding that the new centre would raise the number of beds available to treat Ebola patients to 351.
The outbreak started in a rural part of central Uganda before spreading to other areas, including Kampala, a city of more than 1.6 million.
The Ebola virus circulating in Uganda is the Sudan strain of Ebola, for which there is no proven vaccine, unlike the more common Zaire strain seen during recent outbreaks in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Aceng said the health ministry would be evaluating the efficacy of three Ebola Sudan vaccine candidates in the coming weeks, one developed by Oxford University, one made by the Sabin Vaccine Institute in the United States and another by U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co.
The Ugandan health minister said the main objective is to evaluate the vaccines’ efficacy to protect primary contacts of Ebola patients within 29 days of contact. She said the vaccine trail is expected to begin in two weeks’ time.
Notably, the East African country has introduced various measures to control further spread of the deadly virus including imposing curfews in some affected areas.
