When an Ebola outbreak swept through central Uganda in late September, government officials were willing to do anything to contain the virus except to take one crucial step: imposing a lockdown.
This is radically different from their response during the coronavirus outbreak, when Uganda imposed some of the most restrictive lockdown orders in Africa by closing its borders, banning public transport and banning public transport. plus and close schools for two years — one of the longest outages worldwide.
Officials in Uganda, a landlocked country in East Africa, now admit they are hesitant to impose similar restrictions in recent Ebola outbreak because of anger, resentment and lingering trauma over Covid’s stringent measures. They worry that another harsh response to the outbreak could spark protests, batter an already strained economy and leave tired citizens inundated with misinformation about the dangers. – and even the existence – of the alienated Ebola virus.
The initial decision not to blockade the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak has haunted Uganda. The epidemic spread to 9 districts, including the capital Kampala. World Health Organization report 142 confirmed cases and 55 confirmed deaths, with an additional 22 deaths possibly linked to the outbreak.
“We should have done it much more aggressively,” said Henry Kyobe Bosa, an epidemiologist managing the Ebola response at the Department of Health. But he added, “Remember, we’re from Covid and you don’t want to disrupt people’s lives as much as possible.”
outbreak, the country’s most dangerous in more than two decades, has largely subsided and no new Ebola cases have been reported recently. But those affected are questioning whether all the pain can be avoided.
Among the dead was 12-year-old Ssebiranda Isaiah Victor, whose relatives had gathered on a recent overcast afternoon for a memorial service in Nakaziba, their village in the lush hills of northern Japan. central Uganda.
The family lives in Kampala and the boy’s father, Ssekiranda Fred, said his son contracted the virus from a neighbor child from Kassanda, one of the districts at the center of the outbreak.
Mr. Fred said that if the government had taken strict measures to limit the virus, “perhaps things would not have turned out the way”.
“I miss you, son,” he said. “He was brilliant, a dreamer.”
Ebola, a highly contagious disease mainly found in Africa, causes fever, fatigue and bleeding in the eyes and nose. The virus kills about half of the people it infects. The highest number of deaths, 11,325 peoplewas recorded in an outbreak in West Africa between 2014 and 2016. An outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2018-20 killed 2,280 people.
In recent years, Uganda has suffered from several disease outbreaks, including Marburg measles and polio, which have burdened the country’s health system.
So when Covid-19 hit, the authorities introduced sweeping restrictions, having devastating effects on the country’s 47 million people. Human rights groups and opposition members argue that the measures are part of an effort to suppress dissent front tightly competitive elections last year and the bloody months that followed.
Ugandan health officials say they are reluctant to issue another lockdown when Ebola is detected, despite recommendations from health experts and aid groups urging them to quickly halt movement to and from disease outbreak areas.
“This is a public health emergency of international concern and the government seems to have fallen behind,” said a senior aid official involved in the emergency response to Ebola, who also like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues. “They want to give the general impression that the epidemic is under control.”
Finally, on October 15, nearly a month after the first Ebola case was reported, President Yoweri Museveni announced curfew from dusk to dawn and restrictions on movement in and out of Mubende and Kassanda, the districts where the outbreak is concentrated.
By then, the virus had already reached the capital. People who have been in contact with an Ebola patient from Mubende are escape isolation. Mr. Museveni said in a statement that a contact had withheld his identity and address to seek treatment from a healer in a neighboring county. He later died in Kampala.
“They’re really determined not to block anymore because they know that public confidence is gone,” said another senior Western health official with knowledge of emergency response. But with the virus in Kampala, the official said, “they feel pushed into it.”
At that time, the United States was issued an order to screen all travelers from Uganda to US airports. Many tourists are also postponing or canceling their trips to Uganda, threatening the tourism industry which is betting on the upcoming holiday season to bounce back. The incredible damage of the pandemicHerbert Byaruhanga, president of the Uganda Tourism Association and director of a bird-watching company.
“It’s like adding salt to the wound,” Mr Byaruhanga said.
The Ugandan public’s distrust of the government’s Ebola response has created fertile ground for misconceptions, including the belief that Ebola is caused by witchcraft and the burial of victims. Ebola patients are kept private – not to prevent spread but so that their organs can be removed. harvest and sell.
At a motorbike taxi station in Kassanda, nearly a dozen people gathered one recent evening to reassure reporters that Ebola does not exist. The blockade, they say, is intended to punish the school district for supporting an opposition party led by a politician-turned-musician. Wine Bobi in the 2021 election. They also accused the police of beating them to enforce an overnight curfew.
“Where’s Ebola?” Mutumba Alex, a taxi driver, asked. Swiping his driver’s license, he said he knew the area well and didn’t see any evidence of getting sick or dying from the disease. “Ebola doesn’t exist.”
But the reality in Kassanda is different from Nantale Rashida, who said she faced stigma and discrimination from neighbors when her husband, Asadu Matovu, tested positive for Ebola. Mr. Matovu recovered but lost his mother and two brothers to the virus.
To prevent Ms. Rashida and their children from going somewhere, she said, the community “tied a rope around our property”. “I spent all day and night crying.”
Numerous corruption cases related to the coronavirus pandemic have also eroded people’s trust in their leaders.
United States, where there are donate more than $22 million to fight Ebola, has Also concerned about corruption, said Natalie E. Brown, US ambassador to Uganda. The majority of donations from the United States and other donors have gone through aid agencies rather than directly to the Ministry of Health – a move that has angered Ugandan officials, according to interviews with aid officials.
Corruption even hits Ebola patients. A report prepared by health officials in Cassanda and seen by The New York Times noted that Ebola survivors complained that police had confiscated their property and demanded bribes to release them.
There is a vaccine to prevent Ebola, but no vaccine or approved treatment for the Sudan strain of the virus, which caused the recent outbreak in Uganda. A clinical trial of the three vaccines – conducted by the Washington-based Sabin Vaccine Institute, the University of Oxford and the US pharmaceutical company Merck – is underway. preparing. Researchers have also begun clinical trials of two US-funded monoclonal antibodies that may help increase a patient’s chance of survival.
However, some experts say that with no new Ebola cases reported in Uganda as of now, an important opportunity to improve understanding of the Sudanese strain of Ebola may have been missed.
Now, families across Uganda are grieving for their loved ones.
Days after he lost his son to Ebola in mid-October, Nakku Martha, Fred’s wife of 22 years, also died from the virus. Mr. Fred was isolated when they both died and he was unable to attend their burials. He said, even in mourning, he is grateful that the virus did not take away his remaining three sons.
“Ebola could have wiped us all out,” he said, eyes filled with tears one recent afternoon, as he walked around his son’s tiled grave under a banana tree. “But we survived and there is still hope.”
Musinguzi Blanshe Contribution report from Kampala, Uganda.
