Jeff Otieno
16 December 2007
Nairobi — The government has ruled out closing the Kenya-Uganda border following an outbreak of the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever in the neighbouring country.
Speaking to the Sunday Nation, the Ministry of Health's chief medical officer, Dr Shahnaaz Sharif, said the spread of the fever was now under control in Uganda.
So far, 32 people, including medical personnel, have died in the outbreak that hit Bundibugyo district in western Uganda. Dr Sharif said tests carried out in eight Ugandan districts on blood samples suspected to be infected with the virus were negative, proof that the disease was now under control.
"It means that Ebola is so far restricted to one district which means the control measures in place are succeeding in checking the spread," he said.
The medical officer said the Kenya Government had sent a team of five doctors to study the outbreak. It teamed up with medical personnel from other parts of the world who went to Uganda to help control the spread.
"Two of the doctors are expected in the country today (yesterday)," said Dr Sharif.
He said the government will continue to screen travellers coming from Uganda until the fever is completely brought under control in Bundibugyo district.
The response unit at the Kenya-Uganda border includes public health officers, nurses, laboratory technologists and clinical officers. "We continue to screen travellers by taking details of where they come from, where they are going and how long they are going to stay in the country," said Dr Sharif.
The details, he said, are important in tracing suspected persons if the fever were detected in the country.
However, he asked Kenyans not to panic, saying everything was under control.
The medical personnel at the border were doing a good job, Dr Sharif said.
He said a special ward had been set aside at the Busia District Hospital to deal with any Ebola case that might be detected from Uganda.
Another medical centre in Malaba, he said, was monitoring the disease trend.
Last week, the Busia medical officer of health, Dr Silas Ayunga, confirmed that medical personnel had been stationed on the Uganda border to screen people entering the country.
By last week the team had screened more than 200 people from Uganda. President Yoweri Museveni has ordered an investigation into the origin of the latest Ebola outbreak which sent the country into a panic.
The directive came following conflicting reports that the first persons to contract the haemorrhagic fever ate a monkey and not a dead goat as had earlier been reported by medical investigators.
Epidemiological experts are baffled by the actual host of the virus that causes Ebola, but scientific inquiries since 1976 -- the first time the lethal subtypes of Ebola Sudan and Ebola Zaire were discovered -- have concluded that monkeys could be the agents that transmit the virulent disease.
Ebola is one of the most virulent viral diseases known to man and results in death in 50 to 90 per cent of all clinically ill patients.
It can be transmitted by direct contact with infected blood, body fluids and tissues of infected persons.
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