By Spy Uganda
Africa’s top public health body said on Thursday that the Ebola outbreak in Uganda is coming under control, as it has been 39 days since the last confirmed case of the virus had been reported in the country.
The Africa CDC’s acting director, Ahmed Ogwell Ouma, told a briefing that the outbreak will be over if no new cases are reported in Uganda by January 10.
Ouma revealed that there have been 142 confirmed Ebola cases and 55 deaths in the Uganda outbreak. Vaccine trials against the Sudan strain of Ebola are ongoing, he added.
Uganda’s last confirmed case was diagnosed on 13 November, save for a stillborn baby on 27 November whose mother had already recovered.
Researchers had hoped for a chance to test new Ebola vaccines. A vaccine has been approved since 2019 for the Zaire ebolavirus, which has caused multiple outbreaks in several countries, including a widespread epidemic in West Africa that ran from 2013 to 2016. But researchers suggest that vaccine will not work against the genetically distinct Sudan ebolavirus behind this Uganda outbreak.
(https://www.apolloclinic.com/)
