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TANZANIA-DRCONGO-UGANDA-EBOLA
Tanzania ‘in danger’ following Ebola cases in neighbour Uganda: minister
NAIROBI, June 16, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Tanzania’s health minister issued an
Ebola ‘alert’ Sunday after the disease, which has killed over 1,400 people in
the Democratic Republic of Congo, appeared in their shared neighbour, Uganda.
“I want to alert the public that there is the threat of an Ebola epidemic
in our country,” Ummy Mwalimu tweeted days after officials confirmed that
members of a family who had travelled to the DRC had died in western Uganda.
The minister said the alert was necessary given the frequent interactions
between Tanzanian and Ugandan people “via the official borders or by other,
unofficial channels.”
Tanzania’s northwestern Kagera, Mwanza and Kigoma regions were most at
risk, said Mwalimu. But “given that this disease transmits very easily and
very quickly from one person to another, nearly the entire country is in
danger.”
The minister began a tour of the frontier regions on Saturday to assess
the measures in place at ports and border posts to deal with potential
incoming Ebola cases.
The country has not yet been touched by the often fatal viral disease that
causes violent vomiting and diarrhoea, impairs kidney and liver function, and
sometimes internal and external bleeding.
Ebola spreads among humans through close contact with the blood, body
fluids, secretions or organs of an infected person, or objects contaminated
by such fluids.
The current outbreak in the DRC is the worst on record after an epidemic
that struck mainly in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone between 2014-2016,
killing more than 11,300 people.
On Friday, the World Health Organization said the outbreak does not yet
warrant being declared a “public health emergency of international concern”,
meaning it would require a “coordinated international response”.
The UN body declares public health emergencies when a disease outbreak in
a country risks spreading beyond its borders.
Two members of a Ugandan family, a woman and her five-year-old grandson
died of Ebola this week after travelling to the DRC to take care of a dying
family member and attend the funeral.
The boy’s brother, aged three, is also infected, and several family
members are in isolation.
To date, no locally-acquired Ebola cases have been reported in Uganda.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1442 hrs