Ebola virus outbreak prompts Uganda to host regional meeting with CDC and WHO
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Uganda will host a ministerial meeting on the Ebola virus outbreak.
NAIROBI, Kenya — The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Uganda next week will host a ministerial meeting on the outbreak of the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus which has no proven vaccine and has caused alarm in the East Africa region.
Acting director Ahmed Ogwell told journalists on Thursday the three countries that suffered the devastating West Africa outbreak of Ebola in 2014-16, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, also are invited to the Oct. 12 meeting.
The current Ebola outbreak in central Uganda has a 69% case fatality rate, which Ogwell called “very high,” and four health workers are among the 30 people who have died. There have been 43 confirmed cases. None have been in the capital, Kampala.
Ogwell said the exposure of health workers was at the beginning of the outbreak “when we did not know what we were dealing with,” and he dismissed the suggestion that the infections signaled the outbreak was getting out of hand.
Relatives of a woman who died from Ebola prepare her grave in Kijavuzo, Uganda, on Sept. 29. Hajarah Nalwadda / APHe said more than 860 active contacts have been listed and at least 78% of them are being monitored, a situation that has almost doubled from a week ago.
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