Tabu Butagira & Emmanuel Gyezaho
5 December 2007
Kampala — AS the country grapples with the deadly Ebola outbreak in western Uganda, medics are struggling to contain a rising spate of meningitis and bubonic plague in West Nile, cholera in Hoima and Buliisa, and yellow fever in the northern district of Kitgum.
The Minister of State for Primary Healthcare, Dr Emmanuel Otaala, announced the simultaneous contagions during a press conference in Kampala yesterday moments before he rushed to Parliament - where he outlined the contingency plans put in place by the government to scuttle the further spread of the highly communicable Ebola hemorrhagic fever. Parliament heard that Nebbi District is facing the brunt of a plague outbreak, while suspected cases of meningococcal meningitis have been reported in Arua District.
Dr Otaala stunned the House when he said suspected cases of hepatitis had been recorded in Kitgum District on top of the yellow fever, adding that "my ministry is doing everything it can to handle the situations."
In a follow up interview, Mr Patrick Anguzu, the Arua District health officer said the re-emergence of meningoccocal meningitis that has been on a low key since July 10, had killed 27 people out of 255 registered cases.
"The most affected areas are Arivu Subcounty in Vurra County and parts of Upper Madi (constituency)," Mr Anguzu said on phone yesterday.
Dr Sam Zaramba, the director general of health services, had earlier said medics in West Nile region had been put on high alert over the meningitis epidemic, which claimed at least 65 lives among over 2, 000 infected persons when the disease struck in December 2006 to March this year.
At the time, the government with support from the World Health Organisation and MSF - France, undertook partial mass vaccinations in Arua, Koboko, Yumbe, Moyo and Nebbi districts, but this time round, it is counties like Vurra in Arua, which were not covered during the immunization that are registering the renewed infections.
At the press conference, Dr Otaala attributed the incessant occurrence of plague in Nebbi along the frontier line with the DR Congo, to the primitive culture of the indigenous people "where men sleep on beds while women sleep on the floor."
"The people mainly affected are women because in that district (Nebbi), women only come up on the bed (for sex)," Dr Otaala said, at the Media Centre in Kampala.
"The flea (that causes plague) can only jump up to six inches (high) and (that means) if everybody was sleeping on a bed, there would be no plague in this country," Dr Zaramba said in a separate interview.
Plague is usually transmitted to humans through a bite of a flea from an infected rodent host, mainly rats and squirrels and occasionally through handling of infected animals, according to online medical publications.
Dr Zaramba said the ministry had dispatched medics to investigate reports of the plague outbreak in Nebbi, amid reports that the disease has reportedly affected between 25-30 residents.
Referring to the Nebbi incidences, Dr Zaramba added; "It is disheartening to see that a section in Uganda's society can let women sleep on the floor while men sleep on beds". Common symptoms of plague include; high fever, chills, headache, bulged armpit lymph nodes and swollen glands.
Dr Zaramba said the ministry had also sent personnel to Kitgum in the Acholi Sub region to establish if the suspected contagion there is truly yellow fever or hepatitis as is being suspected. The cholera cases so far registered in Hoima District are among fishermen in Butiaba; at Wanseko landing site in Buliisa and Panyimur in Nebbi.
In his statement to Parliament on Ebola, Dr Otaala said his ministry was in dire need of Shs6 billion to contain the disease. But MPs questioned the government's responsiveness to epidemics outbreak, with speaker after speaker querying why the government did not announce the outbreak of Ebola on August 20 when its first case was reported.
"When we wanted money for Chogm, we passed it without problems," said Kapelebyong MP Johnson Malinga. "Now here is a minister lamenting that they want Shs6 billion." "We need urgent financial resources," said Bundibudyo MP Jane Babiha. "Volunteers are withdrawing because they haven't been paid. This is a life and death matter. We want to see money in the districts as soon as possible."
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