The Government has stepped up vigilance at the country's border points to deter any possibilities of new epidemics in the country. 

According to the health ministry, the Government has, as part of the plan, okayed new job structures through the public service ministry to ensure that each border (port) is manned by dedicated port staff unlike before.

"We want them to screen and document if there is anything," Dr Diana Atwine, permanent secretary Ministry of Health said last week.

She was speaking about what the Government has done to deal with future occurrences of epidemics during the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party manifesto week.   

From COVID-19 to Marburg and to, recently, Ebola, Uganda has had a fair share of disease outbreaks, some with devastating consequences.  

For example, in October 2022, President Yoweri Museveni was forced to declare a curfew in two districts at the epicenter of an Ebola outbreak that claimed 55 lives in order to stop its spread.

The measures included a dusk-to-dawn curfew, a ban on personal travel and the closure of markets, bars and churches.

Those measures came on the back of a two-year COVID-19 pandemic that killed over 3,000 people and wrecked the country's economy.

According to Atwine, the break out of the diseases in such quick succession has not only created challenges for them but also created opportunities for improvement of the country's systems to become more resilient against future epidemics.

"It has helped us equip our hospitals with ICUs (intensive care units), " she said, adding that previously those in place were just improvised and could not serve their purpose well, especially during the period of covid19.

"But now we building and setting up proper infrastructure and we will ensure they meet international standards.  We are training acute care people," she said.

"We also plan to have neonatal services upgraded in all national referral hospitals to include neonatal ICUs."

She said these will also be extended to general hospitals as a way to reduce neonatal deaths, which she said are now on the rise.