Uganda
Uganda slowly winning the fight against Ebola 

afrol.com, 25 October - In one week, the reported Ebola cases in Gulu have increased from 94 to 176 victims. This increase mostly reflects the intensified active surveillance. Mortality is relatively low and the virus does not seem to have spread from Gulu. These remarkable successes may be attributed to a firm and well organised response to the outbreak.

Also the strain of the virus contributes to e lower mortality. Associates of the World Health Organisation (WHO) characterized the virus strain as similar to, but not identical to Ebola-Sudan. Ebola-Sudan was associated with a case-fatality rate of between 50-70% in disease outbreaks in southern Sudan in 1976 and 1979. The strain appears to be somewhat less virulent than the Ebola-Zaire strain, which has caused epidemics in Congo Kinshasa (former Zaire) and Gabon with a case-fatality rate of between 70-90%, according to WHO.

Swift action
The swift action by the Ugandan Ministry of Health and the WHO seems to have been successful and contributed to a lower fatality rate in the Gulu Ebola outbreak. A senior WHO official, Dr Guenael Rodier, said the facilities in Uganda "are outstanding compared to the classic Ebola situation."

The task force, led by the WHO, has announced that it has "adequate supplies in Gulu district" at its disposal. The facts are impressing. Today, 136 health care workers and volunteers in mobile teams are implementing active surveillance in Gulu district using a standardized case definition, patient and contact registration forms. Training of health care workers is ongoing. There is a diagnostic laboratory set up in Gulu district by the WHO and its collaborators. The Ugandan Ministry of Health is using radio, videos, posters and flyers to disseminate health education messages. Public awareness of the disease and its containment is said to have increased. 

Further, the international health organisations now seem well prepared to meet such a crisis. There are teams of health personnel, experiences from earlier outbreaks, that can leave to a crisis region immediately. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) quickly sent an experienced team to Gulu. Some of the MSF staff members "heading to this outbreak have specific experience with Ebola and Marburg. MSF was in Kikwit, in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1995 when the Ebola outbreak killed 244 people," the organisation informed. 

Ugandan health authorities also moved swiftly to isolate the infected area to stop the spread to other areas. Earlier reports of a possible Ebola outbreak in neighbouring Kitgum town were invalidated by WHO staff. Only today, the UN agency informed that there had not been confirmed any cases outside Gulu district. "WHO supports enhanced surveillance but does not recommend any special restrictions on travel or trade with Uganda," it was stated, demonstrating the agency's confidence in controlling the situation.

Today, a radio communications centre was established in Gulu. Twenty hand-held radios with a dedicated frequency have been dispersed to the mobile teams who are now able to inform the centre quickly of suspected cases and contacts, request transport for ill persons and request burial teams. 

The crisis is far from over and numbers are expected to still increase, but the situation is getting under control. One cannot praise enough the swift action by the UN agency and NGOs in Gulu, so much contrasting the responses to other crises, when not hundreds, but hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake. But then, of course, also the financing of a swift acting increases a thousandfold.

Source: Based on WHO sources

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