The arrival of the body of a 22-year-old student suspected to have succumbed to Ebola hemorrhagic fever created panic in Namulonge, Wakiso district on Tuesday. 

The ministry of Health burial team members - all donned in full personal protective equipment (PPE) quickly disembarked from a pickup vehicle that delivered the body. 

Several mourners who had converged at the deceased's family home were seen fleeing, giving way to the burial team that spent less than 30 minutes in executing the burial. The deceased who had been admitted at Kasangati health center IV hadn't been confirmed as an Ebola case by the time of the burial. Indeed today morning, the ministry said the deceased's results returned negative results. 

But the ministry of Health says all suspected Ebola cases are going to be subjected to the same burial arrangements going forward. According to Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the senior public relations officer at the ministry, they resolved to do this to minimize transmission risk in an event that samples eventually turn out positive.

Dr Stephen Ataro Ayella, a clinical epidemiologist says coming into contact with a body of a confirmed Ebola case or even a suspect puts one at risk of infection. He explains that the body can transmit the disease for up to a week as long as blood is still flowing.

"Even if the person has died, the virus can survive for some time under certain conditions. In some cases, a few days, or up to even a week the body can still be infectious because if it is in a body fluid and you're exposed to it or you touch you can get infected," said Ayella. 

Ayella who was also among the medical workers that Uganda sent to West Africa to help with the Ebola epidemic in 2014, says tests on suspected Ebola dead bodies are conducted by removing a sample from their throats. 

Ainebyoona says the ministry has been receiving several other alerts from different parts of Kampala and the neighbouring Wakiso but none of them has tested positive. The ministry of Health figures indicate that by Tuesday morning, the outbreak had been confirmed in only three districts; Kassanda, Mubende and Kyegegwa which returned positive results. 

Six cases were confirmed bringing the cumulative total to 24. The cumulative confirmed deaths are still five, although, eighteen other deaths occurred before tests could be conducted and surveillance teams were only alerted after burials.

Oral reports from Mubende district indicate these had symptoms consistent with the viral hemorrhagic fever just as the one that was buried today. 

While URN couldn’t obtain information regarding the deceased from health workers at Kasangati, Tom Muwonge, the LC III chairperson of Kasangati town council says the deceased was referred to Kasangati from a private health centre in Maganjo.

When he arrived, the chairperson said he was in a critical state. The deceased’s relatives and the boda boda cyclist who transferred them to Kasangati have since been quarantined. - URN/The Observer

BRAZZAVILLE, Sept. 22 (Xinhua) -- Uganda has reported seven confirmed cases, including one death, amid the latest outbreak of the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus, announced Thursday Henry Kyobe, incidence commander in Uganda's Ministry of Health.

Kyobe made the announcement at an online press briefing held by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, based in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo, adding that the epidemic "appears to have started around the beginning of September".

Kyobe said that the country has reported seven cases that possibly died of Ebola before the confirmation of the outbreak, noting that the health authorities are working on contact tracing and repurposing COVID-19 treatment centers.

The WHO said on Tuesday that a sample taken from a 24-year-old man was identified as the relatively rare Sudan strain. It is the first time in more than a decade that the Sudan strain has been found in Uganda, which also saw an outbreak of the Zaire strain of Ebola virus in 2019.

Existing vaccines against Ebola have proved effective against the Zaire strain but it is not clear if they will be as successful against the Sudan strain, according to WHO in an earlier statement.

Ebola is a severe, often fatal illness affecting humans and other primates. It has six different strains, three of which, Bundibugyo, Sudan and Zaire, have previously caused large outbreaks.

Case fatality rates of the Sudan strain have varied from 41 percent to 100 percent in past outbreaks. The early roll-out of supportive treatment has been shown to significantly reduce deaths from Ebola, according to the WHO. - Xinhua

First Lady Jeannette Kagame has called for political will and commitment of medical professionals in the fight to end cervical cancer while in Sweden on September 16.

She made the remarks during the European launch of Lancet Oncology Commission in Sweden. It was also an opportunity that saw the First Lady awarded for her exceptional commitment to the cause.

“I am no researcher. I am no doctor, or medical specialist. But at heart and by duty, I shall always strive to be an advocate,” she noted.

“I may have been proud to lend my face, my voice, and the stage that this position has offered me, to carry the torch, from boardroom to clinic, from conference halls to private offices, from Kigali to Stockholm....But this torch’s fire was never mine to preserve, and neither was it my individual achievement.”

She emphasized that the advancements Rwanda is proud of, regarding the race to zero cervical cancer fatality by 2030, are the materialization of a system’s efforts.

“Bridging the gap between political will to see positive change occur, and our health system’s ability to effect this change, falls under the advocacy umbrella that many First Ladies carry, yes. But in that, we should never be alone,” she added.

According to experts, the number of new cases of cervical cancer is expected to rise by 55 percent (to 324,598) and deaths by 62 percent (to 186,066 deaths) by 2030.

“I invite my brothers and sisters on the continent, in research, in medicine, in health management, in local politics, in public policy, to constantly question, to constantly reassess, their powers to drive and indeed demand the change that the populations they are endowed to, require.”

Mrs. Kagame said: “unless we all embrace sustainability, autonomy, self-provision, continental collaboration, and every other asks of our SDGs, we will keep counting, witnessing, suffering from deaths that science has long ago deemed avoidable.”

Zero cervical cancer fatality on our continent is possible, therefore it should be expected. No delays, no excuses, she asserted.

“Having inoculated over 90 percent of the girls aged 12 and under against HPV, the main cause of cervical cancer, means that from now on, all the girls aged 29 and under, who screen negative of cervical cancer, may very well be immunized entirely, against the disease,” she highlighted

Rwanda started the HPV (Human Papillomavirus) vaccination programme in 2011, targeting 12-year-old school girls. Health officials say that 97 per cent of them are vaccinated each year. - Alice Kagina, The New Times