Uganda’s Ministry of Health and World Health Organization (WHO) are identifying contacts of a person from the Democratic Republic of Congo who visited the country to trade in fish last week before leaving and died of Ebola later.
According to Ministry of Health and WHO surveillance teams on Thursday 11th July 2019, a trader with symptoms consistent with Ebola had been in Uganda to buy fish at Mpondwe market.
She was a well-known and regular trader at the market.
The surveillance teams established that she had four episodes of vomiting on the day she was in the country,
On Friday 12th July 2019, she travelled back to Beni and was admitted in the Beni Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) on Saturday 13th July 2019.
She died on Monday 15th July, 2019 in the ETU after testing positive for Ebola.
According to the surveillance team, the deceased did not use the formal border entry point where she would have passed through temperature screening and provided with necessary care by health workers.
The Ministry of Health response team is identifying and following up all people who came into contact with the trader with the collaboration of colleagues in DRC.
The ministry in a statement notes that, as part of the response activities, the Ministry with support from WHO, will immediately vaccinate all people who came into contact with the deceased trader in order to control possible spread of the disease in the country.
Last month three Ebola cases were confirmed in Uganda.
The three who later died were from DRC where they had gone to nurse a sick relative.
At present there is no confirmed Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) case in Kasese District or any other part of Uganda.
However Uganda remains on high Ebola alert as the disease continues to ravage parts of neighbouring DRC.
The World Health Organization-WHO has declared the outbreak of Ebola in DRC as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern-PHEIC after an Ebola case was reported in Goma, DRC.
PHEIC’s are declared during an outbreak when the risk of the disease spreading to other countries is high.
According to WHO, with the spread of the disease to Goma, chances of the deadly disease spreading to Rwanda and Uganda are high
CN/as/APA