A day after Uganda's Ministry of Health announced a new Ebola outbreak in the capital, Kampala, most Ugandans appeared unaware or unconcerned about the outbreak and went about their business normally. But health authorities are warning Ugandans not to take Ebola lightly.
For weeks, Uganda has battled an outbreak of mpox, also known as monkeypox, that has affected more than 2,000 people and caused 13 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.
But Dr. Julius Lutwama, deputy director of the Uganda Virus Research Institute, said Ugandans need to worry more about Ebola than mpox.
"Ebola is more highly infectious even than monkeypox," Lutwama said. "And it is even a more severe infection than monkeypox. The percentage of people that end up dead from Ebola is up to 80% while for monkeypox it is below 5%."
Ebola killed more than 50 people in Uganda during the 2022 outbreak.
Nurse dies of Ebola
On Thursday, Dr. Diana Atwine, Uganda's permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, announced the new outbreak after a 32-year-old nurse died from the disease.
Atwine said the nurse sought treatment at multiple health facilities including Mulago National Referral Hospital and from a traditional healer. The patient suffered with high fever, chest pain and difficulty breathing since Jan. 20, then unexplained bleeding and multiple organ failure before dying Wednesday.
Atwine said the nurse died from the Sudan strain of Ebola.
'We will leave it to God'
While the Ministry of Health is cautioning the public with reminders of the symptoms of Ebola, several Kampala residents who spoke to VOA said they had not heard about or were not worried about the outbreak.
Kampala resident Ntale Steven said he is not going to shut down his business.
"We will leave it to God, so the disease doesn't spread," he said. "And if there's an outbreak, we should get treatment and be helped. Health workers should also care for whoever gets infected. Because we have nothing to do, we must move."
Health authorities have moved to quarantine those who had contact with the deceased Ebola victim. Out of the 44 people in isolation, 30 are health workers from the National Referral Hospital. The rest are family members and health workers from other private facilities.
Lutwama said because it takes days before symptoms start to show, this is when most infected persons transmit the disease to others, placing health workers at a higher risk.
"Many people then can transmit it during that period, before they come to that stage of bleeding," said Lutwama. "But still the health workers are supposed to be on the lookout. And they are also supposed to be protected, but as you know, sometimes our hospitals are missing a few things like gloves, they don't have hypochlorite like Jik [bleach] to be able to wash their hands thoroughly and things like that."
Even with warnings from Lutwama and the Ministry of Health, Ogwang John, a security guard, said he will take precautions only if he gets an order from his boss.
"Me, I'm not worried," he said. "I always go with the decision of my boss. When he says that we do this, the disease is there, yes, we can take. But if he has not talked with me, I'm also a carefree man."
The Ministry of Health said it will continue tracing contacts and monitoring those under isolation as they await more support from the World Health Organization's contingency fund for emergencies.
