Uganda: Update on Ebola outbreak
The Ebola outbreak has been declared on 20 September. The latest figures provided by the Ministry of Health as of 26th of September are: 43 cases have been reported (24 confirmed and 19 probable cases), 23 people have died (5 confirmed deaths and 18 probable deaths).
As the entity having the better analysis of the situation, the Ministry of Health of Uganda is leading the response. MSF is working in close and good collaboration with the Ministry to respond to the gaps and needs that are assessed and identified.
We already know that the fight against this Ebola outbreak will bring several challenges and it will force all stakeholders to design a response adapted to the relatively rare strain of Ebola Sudan. Unlike the Zaire strain, there is for example no vaccine nor treatment proven effective so far. A vaccine candidate and antiviral treatment exist, but at an experimental stage. The WHO and MOH are exploring the current possibilities.
At this stage, it is too early to have a clear analysis about the lethality of this epidemic in comparison to the previous ones. What we can say from our precedent experiences is that other factors are of great influence on the epidemiologic trend and that it is crucial to work on these aspects to contain the disease. These are for example:
- the importance of a decentralized approach close to the patient’s home, and of community-based surveillance and contact tracing capacities,
- sampling and laboratory capacities that should also be close to where the suspect cases are to enable rapid transportations of the samples and rapid results,
- the information and acceptance of the response by the population: since there are no symptoms specific to Ebola, it is essential that people infected by the virus have access to health care at the earliest stage of the disease,
- the aid provided to the sick people and their relatives to enable them to access health care at the early stage of the disease (including psychosocial support, self-isolation kits,…),
- the infection prevention and control measures to avoid contamination inside health facilities, along with
- the sensitization of health care workers regarding the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) and contamination route,
- the support to non-Ebola care
As of today, MSF has set up a 36 beds Ebola treatment unit at the Mubende hospital, for suspect and confirmed cases. MSF will start extending this unit by adding 20 to 40 new beds.
In addition, in Madudu – which is the epicenter of the outbreak - MSF started setting up an additional treatment unit. All these units have been put in place by MSF and will be managed by the Ministry of Health. In addition, the Ministry of Health asked MSF to study the possibility to set-up an Ebola center dedicated to health worker, and to contribute to the Ebola response through the support of staff with experience in hemorrhagic fever.
MSF has expressed its availability to the MoH in the following areas : support to the case management at the Mubende regional referral hospital; decentralized case management in the affected sub-county of Madudu; support to laboratory capacities; community activities and psychosocial support in collaboration with WHO and MoH teams, including awareness, mobilization, education of patients in hospitals and in the community; psychosocial and psychological support; reinforcement of epidemiology capacities including the implementation of data collection tools and contact tracing in collaboration with WHO and the MoH.
ENDS