Keep Ebola virus at bay

Uganda’s health authorities have confirmed the outbreak of Ebola, a zoonotic disease caused by a virus that jumps from wild animals, mainly bats, to humans. Uganda has ever grappled with Ebola outbreaks of the Zaire strain, which has vaccines, but this one is rare, attributed to the Sudan strain that has no vaccine.

Officials have confirmed deaths and are working to trace the contacts of the patients. The disease, spread by contact with body fluids or materials contaminated with body fluids from an infected person or animal, manifests through high fever, bleeding, diarrhoea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

The confirmation should keep the Kenyan authorities on high alert and jolt them to mounting preventive measures against the disease. Over the years, Kenya and Uganda, by virtue of being neighbours, enjoy strong and even enviable socioeconomic ties facilitated by robust cross-border trade and mobility.

With the contagious disease, appropriate measures must be taken to ensure people and, equally importantly, animals, which could be reservoirs of the virus, entering into the country through the border are not infected with the disease.

Surveillance should not be limited to border points to screen humans and animals for the virus, but also the visitors who fly in from Uganda. Despite heightened surveillance at ports of entry, it would be foolhardy to rule out the possibility of the disease entering the country through people who use illegal paths on the porous border.

Local residents who present with symptoms consistent with those of Ebola should be encouraged to promptly report to a health centre for investigation.

One lesson from the Covid-19 pandemic is that the nature of preventive measures mounted prior to an outbreak and early response to an infectious disease could be the difference between life and death.

Dr Kerima (PhD) is a biochemist. [email protected]. @KerimaZablon