The CDC, Africa's top public health body, says that the Ebola outbreak in Uganda is coming under control with no new confirmed case reported in the country for the last 39 days. But it needs to pass 42 days to be considered Ebola-free.
Officials first confirmed the outbreak in September and said it was the Sudan strain of the disease, for which there is no proven vaccine.
On 25 November, Uganda's Health Ministry closed all schools two weeks early to curb the spread of Ebola in the capital Kampala.
The authorities also introduced controversial restrictions on movement.
Last month Uganda discharged its last known Ebola patient from hospital and President Yoweri Museveni lifted all Ebola-related movement restrictions, in a sign the spread of the disease was being curbed.
The Africa CDC's acting director, Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, told a briefing on Thursday that if no new cases were reported in Uganda by 10 January then the outbreak would be over.
He praised the Ugandan government's coordination of Ebola-containment measures, saying it had taken around 70 days to bring the outbreak under control with 142 confirmed cases and 55 deaths.
Vaccine trials against the Sudan strain of Ebola were ongoing, Ouma added.
Uganda received its first shipment of trial vaccines on 8 December, 2022.
Deadly virus
African health authorities have made a concerted effort to boost their readiness to respond to Ebola following a devastating outbreak of the Zaire strain of the disease in West Africa in 2014-2016 that killed 11,300 people, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
A vaccine against that strain was developed in 2018. But it is not effective against the current Sudan strain.
Ebola is one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world.
It causes vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea and spreads via contact with bodily fluids of infected people.
Mortality rates for the disease are on average about 50 percent, according to the World Health Organization.
The virus can sometimes linger in the eyes, central nervous system and bodily fluids of survivors and flare up years later.
The WHO says a country needs to pass 42 days – twice the maximum incubation period – after the last confirmed case for it to be declared Ebola-free.
(with Reuters)
