Personal Health

Ebola virus spreads to Uganda

The current epidemic of Ebola in Eastern Congo has first reached a neighbouring country. In the case of a five-year-old boy, who had traveled from the Ebola area to Uganda, had been proven the life-threatening Virus disease, said the world health organization (WHO). The child has since died at a quarantine Station in the Ugandan Kasese. The news agencies Reuters and AP reports citing the WHO also of two other confirmed infection cases in Uganda.

The five-year-old Boy had been treated in an Ebola treatment centre in the border town of Bwera. His parents and other members of the family were placed under quarantine. After infection for up to 21 days may pass before the disease breaks out. The hemorrhagic – with hemorrhage-associated Ebola fever ends for most of the Infected with death.

The WHO had warned for months prior to a spread of the Ebola epidemic to neighbouring countries. The outbreak relates to a Region in Congo which lies in close proximity to Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan. To prevent the Virus from spreading, Uganda has set up on the border routine Fever control. Alone in the town of Kasindi up to 25,000 people cross the border every day.

The family had been ill cared for grandfather

The family of the deceased young lives Kasese in the Western Ugandan district. They had traveled in may in the Congo, to provide the Ebola large-diseased father of the child, such as the Congolese health announced the Ministry. This succumbed to the disease at the end of may.

As the 14-member extended family was crossing in Kasindi on the border to Uganda, showed several members of the family already possible Ebola symptoms, such as, the Ministry said. They should be sent for treatment at an Ebola centre, six members of the family fled and crossed the border to unsupervised areas. The Ugandan authorities had immediately been informed.

The border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda: All Incoming need to wash feet and hands with a chlorine solution, also measured in all of the fever.

Shortly afterwards, the family brought the boy to a ugandisches the hospital. On his arrival the child had typical Ebola symptoms: There is blood spat, suffered from bloody diarrhoea, muscle pain, headache and fatigue, as the Ugandan Ministry of health announced. The Ebola Virus is transmitted through body fluids, including blood and sweat.

2100 Infected, 1400 Dead

Uganda had made in the past few months, already precautions in case the Virus be introduced. Health care workers were vaccinated with an experimental medium, in addition, the country’s treatment centres built. In Uganda, there had been several times in the past Ebola outbreaks, most recently in 2012. At that time, more than 200 people died as a result of the disease.

In the East of Congo have been infected since the beginning of the epidemic in August, nearly 2100 people with the Virus, around 1,400 of them died. Thus, it is the second most severe Ebola outbreak in history. Due to violent clashes in the affected provinces of helpers have extreme problems, to get the epidemic under control. Armed groups attack again and again, treatment centers, and spread rumors that the government wanted to decimate the Virus in the population.

Hope makes an experimental vaccine, the approximately 130,000 people in the Region have received. The agent was developed according to the so far most serious Ebola epidemic 2014/2015 in West Africa. At that time, more than 11,000 people were killed. As a drug, with which the disease can be heal is missing. Instead, it is yet only possible to treat the discomfort.