Ebola now tamed, say doctors

By John Eremu & Agencies THE dreaded Ebola disease, which has hit Gulu district, will be contained in two weeks time, health experts said yesterday. The swift action to fight the haemorrhagic fever has resulted in a much lower mortality rate than earlier cases of the deadly virus, World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Ministry of Health officials said. In a brief to health workers at the Annual Scientific Conference which opened in Kampala yesterday, director general of health services Prof. Francis Omaswa said the relatively high number of new cases reported over the past two days was due to "enhanced case finding." "We will get on top of this disease and in a week or two, new cases will be history," said Omaswa, who represented health minister Crispus Kiyonga at the conference. WHO representative in Uganda Dr. Walker Oladepo said, "By the middle of next week, we hope to see a significant drop in new cases, perhaps even by the weekend, although we say next week to be cautious. We are working around the clock to make it happen," Oladepo told AFP. The death toll from the disease, which kills between 50 to 90% of the people who contract it, now stands at 41 of the reported 111 cases in Gulu. Only 37% of the victims died. Medical experts attributed the low death rate to the quick reaction of the Government and international agencies once the disease had been identified as Ebola on October 14. "It's simple. Firstly, we have moved in very fast. Secondly, we are also giving good support to patients once in hospital," Oladepo said. "Viral haemorrhagic fevers are often accompanied by high fatalities, but if you can get the support systems going for long enough before the patient has an overwhelming viral load, you might save more of them," he added. "When people die, they die of dehydration and loss of blood. If you replace the water and some of the clotting factors, you may be able to keep them alive. That does not mean mortality will not be high, but the numbers will be reduced," Oladepo said. Omaswa described as false reports of Ebola in Lira, Soroti and Kamuli. "The case in Kitgum has now been confirmed as not Ebola," he said. Omaswa said an inter-ministerial task force, headed by the Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, Prof. Mondo Kagonyera, had been formed to handle the problem. WHO is coordinating international efforts in combating the contagious viral disease, he said. Omaswa said the British Department for International Development had offered $208,000 (about sh378.5m) while WHO gave $65,000 (sh118m). Other donors had given help in kind, he said. He voiced concern over the screening of Ugandans at the Kenyan border, saying Ebola could only be contracted through direct physical contact with an infected person. "An infected person means a person who is ill and not a person incubating it," he said. The high level of awareness in Uganda of how HIV is transmitted and the well-entrenched public information infrastructure that helped reduce HIV transmission rate by half over the last decade is responsible for the low mortality from Ebola, the experts said.