Uganda Declares End to Ebola Outbreak
Uganda has declared an end to Ebola disease outbreak caused by Sudan ebolavirus, less than four months after the first case was confirmed in the country’s central Mubende district on September 20, 2022.
According to the Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng Ocero, “Uganda put a swift end to the Ebola outbreak by ramping up key control measures such as surveillance, contact tracing and infection, prevention and control. While we expanded our efforts to put a strong response in place across the nine affected districts, the magic bullet has been our communities, which understood the importance of doing what was needed to end the outbreak and took action,”
The case was Uganda’s first Ebola (Sudan ebolavirus) outbreak in a decade and overall fifth for this kind of disease. In total, there were 164 cases (142 confirmed and 22 probable), 55 confirmed deaths and 87 recovered patients. More than 4000 people who came in contact with confirmed cases were followed up and their health monitored for 21 days. Overall, the case-fatality ratio was 47 per cent. The last patient was released from care on November 30 when the 42-day countdown to end of the outbreak began.
Authorities exhibited strong political commitment and implemented accelerated public health actions. People in the hotspot communities of Mubende and Kasanda experienced restricted movements.
The Director-General of World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus congratulated Uganda for her swift and comprehensive response, his words: “I congratulate Uganda for its robust and comprehensive response, which has resulted in today’s (yesterday) victory against Ebola.
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“Uganda has shown that Ebola can be defeated when the whole system works together, from having an alert system in place, to finding and caring for people affected and their contacts, to gaining the full participation of affected communities in the response.”
The causative Sudan ebolavirus is one of six species of the disease against which no therapeutics and vaccines have been approved yet. However, Uganda’s long experience in responding to epidemics allowed the country to rapidly strengthen critical areas of the response and overcome the lack of these key tools.
WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, noted: “With no vaccines and therapeutics, this was one of the most challenging Ebola outbreaks in the past five years, but Uganda stayed the course and continuously fine-tuned its response. Two months ago, it looked as if Ebola would cast a dark shadow over the country well into 2023, as the outbreak reached major cities such as Kampala and Jinja, but this win starts off the year on a note of great hope for Africa.”
Soon after Uganda declared the Sudan ebolavirus outbreak, WHO worked with a wide range of partners, including vaccine developers, researchers, donors and relevant health authorities to identify candidate therapeutics and vaccines for inclusion in trials. Three candidate vaccines were identified and over 5000 doses of them arrived in the country, with the first batch on December 8 and the last two on December 17. These vaccines were, however, not deployed.
The global health agency provided nearly $6.5 million to Uganda’s response and an additional $3 million to support readiness in six neighbouring countries.
