Uganda is achieving some success in its fight against the Ebola outbreak as the recorded number of new Ebola cases drops, with some districts going for at least two weeks without registering new infections.
The development is a major sign the East African country is having some respite in efforts to combat its latest outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic fever disease more than two months after it was declared.
This was disclosed by the Health Minister, Jane Ruth Aceng, while speaking on the local NTV news service late Wednesday.
“We are seeing a downward trend in the number of cases,” Aceng said.
“We are also not seeing new cases in Kampala, in the greater Kampala metropolitan area, neither are we seeing cases in Masaka and Jinja,” two other cities, she added.
Central Uganda’s Mubende district was where the outbreak was originally declared on September 20. It and another district, Kassanda, are considered to be the epicentres for the disease’s spread. Movement in and out of them has been restricted.
Health Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Ainebyoona told newsmen earlier that Mubende had gone for at least 16 days without a new case and that Kampala, the capital, had not recorded new infections for at least two weeks.
The virus circulating in Uganda is the Sudan strain of Ebola, for which there is no proven vaccine, unlike the more common Zaire strain, which spread during recent outbreaks in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
But three candidate vaccines against the Sudan strain are planned for a clinical trial in Uganda.
The country has so far recorded 141 cases and 55 deaths, according to the ministry.
