Uganda to honour Ebola, Marburg medics

Oct 14, 2014

Government is to honour all health workers who have been at the forefront of Uganda’s fight against Ebola and other haemorrhagic fever epidemics.

By Taddeo Bwambale

Government is to honour all health workers who have been at the forefront of Uganda’s fight against Ebola and other haemorrhagic fever epidemics.


President Yoweri Museveni has directed the ministry of health to compile a list of all the health workers so that they can be declared national heroes, in honour of their sacrifice.

Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, the director general of health services confirmed on Monday that she was compiling the list that includes fallen medics and the living.

“The real heroes are the medical workers who entered isolation units. We are proud of them and they deserve this recognition,” Aceng said.

Ebola and Marburg are highly infectious viruses that can spread through direct physical contact with body fluids of an infected person such as saliva, blood, stool, vomit, urine and sweat.

They can also be spread through using skin piercing instruments used by an infected person or handling the body of a person who has died of the disease.

Patients with Ebola or Marburg have fever, muscle pain, headache, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and bleeding through body openings. There is no known cure for both ailments.

Uganda has experienced several Ebola and Marburg outbreaks over the last 14 years that have claimed many senior and junior medical officers.

In 2000, during the first Ebola outbreak in Uganda, Dr Matthew Lukwiya and 23 other health workers lost their lives after treat Ebola patients at Lacor Hospital.

Later in 2007, Dr Jonah Kule died after contracting Ebola from patients he was treating in Bundibugyo district.
In July, Dr. Samuel Muhumuza Mutooro, another Ugandan doctor died in Monrovia after contracting the disease from a patient.

Although no case has been reported in the country since the last outbreak in 2012, the disease has already claimed two Ugandan medical doctors in the last four months.  

Earlier this month, Dr John Taban Dada, gynaecologist and surgeon, died in the Liberian capital, Monrovia after contracting the disease.

Last week, another Ugandan, Dr. Michael Mawanda, a paediatrician, was flown to Germany for specialized treatment after he was diagnosed with Ebola in the neighbouring Sierra Leone.

On September 28, Abraham Baluku, a radiographer at Mengo Hospital died of Marburg and a nurse who attended to him is admitted at Entebbe Hospital, pending tests for Marburg.

At least 20 Ugandan health workers are fighting Ebola in West Africa, according to the health ministry. It is not clear whether the fallen health workers will get some form of compensation.

Recently, health workers claimed sh2b in compensation from government, for their fallen comrades who have died treating Ebola patients.

 

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