Hussein Bogere & Agencies
13 September 2007
Kinshasa — AUTHORITIES have placed two towns in southern Democratic Republic of Congo in quarantine to contain an outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever, a deadly disease for which there is no treatment.
Health workers in DR Congo's southern province of Kasai Occidental had reported more than 160 deaths among 352 sick people in the past four months due to a mystery fever.
However, Dr Sam Okware, the chairperson of Uganda's National Task Force on Ebola, said there is no immediate danger to the country but advised travellers, especially business people going to DRC to be vigilant.
Although the threat is still far away, Dr Okware advised authorities at the border posts and at Entebbe International Airport to be on the look out for any suspicious cases of infection, especially the ones that involve bleeding.
The first case of Ebola in Uganda was reported in 2000 in an outbreak in Gulu District that claimed over 200 lives including Dr Mathew Lukwiya, then superintendent of St Mary's Hospital Lacor.
Ebola is characterised by a sudden onset of fever, body weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat.
This is often followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rash, impaired kidney and liver malfunction, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.
Laboratory findings show low counts of white blood cells and platelets as well as elevated liver enzymes. The primary mode of person-to-person transmission is contact with contaminated blood, secretions or body fluids.
Any person who has had close physical contact with patients should be kept under strict surveillance with body temperature checks twice a day, immediate hospitalisation and strict isolation are recommended in case of an onset of fever.
Medical personnel who come into close contact with patients or contaminated materials without barrier nursing attire must be considered as contacts and followed up accordingly.
Dr Lukwiya is widely believed to have died as a result of close contact with the patients.
The Ebola virus was first identified in a western equatorial province of Sudan and in a nearby region of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1976 after significant epidemics in Yambuku in northern DRC, and Nzara in south Sudan.
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