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| Uganda’s Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng speaks to journalists after receiving 1,200 doses of Ebola trial vaccines on December 8, 2022. |
KAMPALA, Uganda
Uganda on Wednesday declared
an end to an Ebola virus outbreak that emerged almost four months ago and
claimed the lives of 55 people.
"We have successfully
controlled the Ebola outbreak in Uganda," Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng
said at a ceremony in the central district of Mubende where the disease was
first detected in September.
The move was confirmed in a
statement issued by the World Health Organization.
Aceng said January 11 marked
113 days since the start of the outbreak of the often-fatal haemorrhagic fever
in the East African country.
According to WHO, an outbreak
of the disease ends when there are no new cases for 42 consecutive days --
twice the incubation period of Ebola.
"Uganda put a swift end to the Ebola outbreak by ramping up key control measures such as surveillance, contact tracing and infection, prevention and control," the WHO statement quoted the minister as saying.
"While we expanded our
efforts to put a strong response in place across the nine affected districts,
the magic bullet has been our communities who understood the importance of
doing what was needed to end the outbreak, and took action."
WHO said in total there were
142 confirmed cases, 55 confirmed deaths and 87 recovered patients.
It said Uganda's outbreak was
caused by the Sudan Ebola virus, one of six species of the Ebola virus for
which no vaccines have yet been approved.
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