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Ebola Is Up Against Uganda's Track Record of Defeating the Virus

Ebola Is Up Against Uganda's Track Record of Defeating The Virus

(Bloomberg) -- Uganda’s health authorities have a track record of dealing with outbreaks of Ebola, and they’re already drawing praise from the World Health Organization for their response to the latest incidence of the virus.

WHO Confirms Case of Ebola Virus Disease in Uganda

The East African nation’s Health Ministry has handled at least three previous outbreaks of the virus, including one in 2000, when 224 people died. As part of their preparation plans, the authorities have vaccinated 4,700 health workers, including those at the facility where a five-year-old child from Congo is currently being cared for, according to the World Health Organization.

Uganda’s previous successes in combating the disease were put to use in the West Africa epidemic in 2014, when more than 11,000 people died. The Ugandan government deployed a team of 20 medics to Sierra Leone and Liberia, including Jackson Amone, who heads up clinical services at the Health Ministry and has dealt with multiple outbreaks in the past.

“There is no cause for alarm,” Sarah Opendi, Uganda’s minister of state for health said. "We have always been prepared right from the time of the outbreak in DRC." All the people who got in contact with the confirmed case have been identified and blood samples taken for testing, Opendi said by phone on Wednesday.

The systems Uganda has in place contrast with the lack of healthcare infrastructure in Congo, where more than 2,000 Ebola cases have been identified since the outbreak of the disease began in August.

To contact the reporters on this story: Paul Richardson in Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net;Fred Ojambo in Kampala at fojambo@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: John McCorry at jmccorry@bloomberg.net, David Malingha, Hilton Shone

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