UGANDA: Ebola spreads to third district

NAIROBI, 13 November (IRIN) - The international medical aid agency,
Medecins sans frontieres (MSF), has confirmed the outbreak of Ebola fever
in a third Ugandan district.

In a statement issued on Monday, MSF said it had sent a team to
Kiryandongo in Masindi district - 180 km northwest of Kampala - to assist
in containing the new outbreak. Two staff members are helping to set up an
isolation ward, after two people died from Ebola symptoms over the
weekend. A third person has also tested positive for the disease.

As of Sunday, 12 November, the Ugandan Ministry of Health had reported
cumulative figures for the northern Gulu district of 320 cases, including
102 deaths, the World Health Organisation (WHO) stated on Monday. It made
no mention of the Masindi case, but the agency on Friday cited three
laboratory-confirmed cases and two deaths in Mbarara district in the
southwest.

The Ugandan high commissioner to Tanzania, Katenta Apuli, at the weekend
asked residents of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to "open up" and report
suspected Ebola cases in order to reduce the regional spread of the virus.
"We would completely get the disease out of the region in a very short
time if people would be more clear," the Tanzanian 'Guardian' newspaper
quoted Apuli as saying. The Ugandan government had taken a very open
approach to the Ebola outbreak, providing people and the media with
twice-daily update reports, and this had helped reduce the number of
victims, Apuli added.

Meanwhile, over 170 people in Gulu who were released from hospital after
recovering from Ebola, were awaiting government assistance after they were
shunned by their communities, the independent Ugandan 'Monitor' newspaper
reported on Saturday.

Dr Sam Okware, chairman of the National Ebola Task Force, said the
government would start a programme next week to compensate survivors whose
homes and property had been destroyed by fellow community members
terrified of contracting the disease. "If your belongings or house have
been destroyed, they will be replaced. The support is going to be more of
material things, and not necessarily money," Okware said. "We are also
starting a counselling programme to educate people that once someone
recovers, they are not infectious: that they can only infect when they
have symptoms of Ebola."