Africa-Press – Uganda. This week, the first death from Ebola in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, was confirmed. According to the Health minister, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, the deceased escaped from Mubende District about a week ago before travelling to Kampala.
The victim was on the Ebola taskforce’s contact list after seven members of his family died from Ebola-like symptoms. But he escaped from Mubende and went to seek treatment from a traditional healer.
In his final hours, he was taken to Kiruddu Hospital in Kampala where he died on Friday last week and his body was taken back to Mubende for burial.
Despite admitting that the victim was poisoning all those he was coming into contact with – more than 42 people have been listed as his contacts – the President in his national address this week said Kampala was facing a “moderate” risk from the virus.
As the President said last week, it might be easy to manage Ebola because the disease is not as transmissible as Covid-19, but the public should remember that Ebola is more deadly than Covid-19.
The current Ebola outbreak in Mubende was triggered by the Sudan Ebola virus whose death risk ranges from 25 percent to 90 percent for infected persons, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). This is several times higher than the case fatality rate of Covid-19 which is at around three percent.
We understand government’s concern to try to prevent any kind of panic among the citizenry, but they should also not be shielded from seeing what could go wrong.
Uganda only lifted Covid-19 restrictions at the beginning of this year following close to two years of lockdown, and we understand that another set of tight restrictions could cripple the already struggling economy.
But the timely, clear and transparent communication of the Ebola Virus Disease outbreak will control its spread and save lives.
Uganda was recognised globally in the way it handled the Covid-19 pandemic, and a lot of credit should be given to how government handled communication. There is a lot we can learn from the lessons picked during the fight against Covid.
First, we should not try to downplay the seriousness of the Ebola outbreak. We could be calm about it, with people even affording to escape from hospital to go and seek treatment from traditional healers, but that will only mean the cases will go up and we shall slowly be isolated by the international community as some countries have now started placing travel restrictions.
Then, we need to be transparent when handling the outbreak so as to gain public trust.
Only with clear and timely communication, transparency and addressing public concerns shall we be able to come out on top of Ebola, the way we did with Covid-19.
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