Uganda has declared the end of a nearly four-month Ebola outbreak that it initially struggled to contain but then quickly brought under control despite the lack of a proven vaccine against the viral strain in question.
“We have successfully controlled the spread of Ebola in Uganda,” Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng said on Wednesday during a ceremony to mark the outbreak’s end.
According to health ministry figures, the outbreak has killed 55 of the 143 people who have been infected since September. Six of those who died were medical personnel.
In the early weeks of the outbreak, cases spread beyond Mubende, 150 kilometers (90 miles) west of Kampala, to several other districts, including Kampala.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization says a country must wait 42 days – twice the maximum incubation period – after the last confirmed case to be declared Ebola-free. Uganda completed that timeline on Wednesday, prompting the declaration.
Uganda discharged its last known Ebola patient in December 2022, and President Yoweri Museveni lifted all Ebola-related movement restrictions.
After a devastating outbreak of the Zaire strain of the disease in West Africa between 2014 and 2016, which killed 11,300 people, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, African health authorities have made a concerted effort to improve their preparedness to respond to Ebola.
Source: Aljazeera News