Uganda's Ebola Outbreak 'Rapidly Evolving' a Month After Disease was First Reported, WHO Warns

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned that Uganda's Ebola outbreak was "rapidly evolving" just a month after the disease was first reported in the East African country.

A top WHO official said on Thursday that the difficult situation for health workers was concerning. The UN health agency's regional director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, said that Uganda's Ministry of Health has shown remarkable resilience and effectiveness and was constantly fine-tuning a response to the health crisis.

Uganda's Ebola Outbreak

He said that a better understanding of the chains of transmission of the disease is helping those on the ground respond more effectively. On Sept. 20, Uganda declared an outbreak of Ebola, several days after the contagious disease began spreading in a rural farming community in the region.

Since then, the Ebola virus has infected 64 people and resulted in the death of 24 others but official figures do not include people who likely died of the disease before the outbreak was confirmed. At least three of the confirmed patients were found to have traveled from the virus hot post in central Uganda to the capital, Kampala, which was roughly 150 kilometers away, as per ABC News.

Concerns that Ebola could spread quickly to farther places from its epicenter prompted authorities to impose a lockdown, including night-time curfews, on two of the five districts that reported Ebola cases.

The acting head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Ahmed Ogwell, said in a briefing on Thursday that Ebola numbers that were being witnessed posed a risk for a spread within the country and its neighboring nations.

According to Reuters, Ogwell said that the situation was still manageable and noted that emergency measures were not necessary. The medical expert said that there is a risk but it was a manageable risk. He added that at this time, there was no need to go into "full emergency measures mode."

Uganda Ebola Virus Spread

The Ebola strain that is spreading throughout the region is the Sudan strain and the existing vaccines and therapies are not effective against it. Ogwell said that there were plans in place to launch vaccine trials but there was no confirmed timeframe for the tests.

On Saturday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said that the government was implementing some lockdown measures to address the situation. These include restricting movement and closing places of worship and entertainment. The districts affected by the lockdowns were the Mubende and Kassanda districts.

Furthermore, the Uganda Ministry of Health was investigating eight recently reported cases that seemed to have no link whatsoever to known contacts already infected with the Ebola virus. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that he was concerned about the possible scope of the outbreak in the African region.

Ghebreyesus said they remained concerned that there may be more chains of transmission and more contacts than officials are aware of in the affected communities. The situation is the first time that an Ebola outbreak by the Sudan strain has hit Uganda since 2012. It is a severe and frequently fatal sickness that is transferred to humans through the bodily fluids of infected animals, CBS News reported.