A three-week lockdown has been declared in two districts of Uganda as the country battles an Ebola outbreak.
Bars, nightclubs, places of worship and entertainment venues will be closed in Mubende and neighbouring Kassanda, and a curfew will come into force.
The move is a U-turn for Uganda‘s President Yoweri Museveni, who previously said there was no need for such measures.
The question of whether there is now cause for fear has been raised by the epidemic, which has made multiple news rounds in some of the most prestigious journals in the world.
Recall, at the start of 2020, nobody seemed to be concerned about the recently identified influenza strain. A few months later, everything came to a complete standstill.
Here are five things everyone should be aware of regarding the current Ebola outbreak and whether it is necessary to exercise caution or not, even if no one wants a repeat of that specific incident.
The first thing that everyone should be aware of regarding the illness is that there is now no treatment for it and no vaccine available.
Ebola is a highly infectious and dangerous disease, and recovery from it depends greatly on supportive treatment and the patient’s immune response. Therefore, the best course of action at this time is prevention.
1.Medical report: The majority of cases of the sickness have thus far been reported in Uganda, where there are already 64 patients and 30 fatalities. While the disease has been prevalent in rural regions, the current Ebola outbreak has a 69% mortality rate. The first death in a large city, Kampala, the capital of the country, was reported a little less than a week ago.
2.Actual numbers: Despite the fact that just 64 cases have been formally confirmed and reported thus far, the Centre for Disease Control in Africa (CDC) has stated that more than 860 active contacts have been registered, at least 78% of whom are being watched, and that number is still rising virtually weekly. In the past four weeks, the infection started to spread.
3.Measures and protocols: Several nations, like the government of Uganda, have started to take preventative precautions. President Museveni of Uganda has changed his mind after first opposing the concept of a lockdown and arguing that since Ebola is not an airborne virus, it does not call for the same precautions as Covid-19. He declared on Saturday that all movements into and out of the districts of Mubende and Kassanda will be suspended for a period of 21 days. There will be no open markets, bars, or places of amusement.
4. On October 6, the United States declared that they would start checking airline passengers from Uganda for Ebola cases.
5.Transmission: Ebola is typically spread through direct contact with blood and other bodily fluids, such as vomit, saliva, and sweat from a sick or deceased patient. It cannot be transmitted through food, water, or the air.