By Kefa Senoga
Government authorities in Uganda could have declared the country Ebola-free on January 11, 2023, but the nearly four months of the virus in the country have seen 55 people lose lives — and many medical staff lose confidence in their abilities to comfortably work in the disease’s isolation units.
When the outbreak of the rare and deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) was announced on September 20, 2022, many medical workers, including 10 doctors, offered to work in the isolation unit of the disease. However, there were reports that the number of medical personnel diminished as fears of catching the hemorrhagic fever increased.
And the fears were well-founded. According to the World Health Organisation figures, 19 medical workers contracted the virus, with seven of them losing the battle. A total of 142 cases were confirmed, and 55 of those died. Another 22 deaths were registered among suspected cases of people who died before samples were taken from them.
Before the 2022 EVD outbreak, Uganda had other outbreaks in 2000, 2014, 2017 and 2018, with the one of 2000 registering the highest number of deaths — 224 — out of 425 cases.
One of the challenges brought about by health emergencies, such as the outbreak of Ebola, is the change of teaching methods in medical schools.
Namayanja Christabel, a medical student at Uganda Christian University’s (UCU) School of Medicine, said the outbreak of the virus in September meant that most students could not spend as much time in hospitals as they were accustomed to because it was putting them at risk of contracting the virus. Namayanja says medical student colleagues who had scheduled ward rounds at Uganda’s Mulago National Referral hospital abandoned the plans.
Mwesigwa Joy, another medical student at UCU, said they abandoned plans of working in the wards because of limited protection.
“The main reason is lack of enough protective equipment that can guarantee our safety,” Mwesigwa explained.
She, however, lauds her colleagues at the School of Medicine for promoting awareness about the disease when it broke out in September 2022.
“We had the Writer’s Society of the UCU School of Medicine write articles on Ebola and it raised a lot of awareness among the students,” Mwesigwa said.
She also noted that they always maintained the standard operating procedures, such as washing hands, keeping a social distance and wearing face masks.
Dr. Mulindwa Geoffrey, the Director of Medical Services at UCU, said the university undertook several measures to fight the spread of the disease.
“Sanitizers and hand-washing points were placed at all entry points of the university premises so that people could clean their hands as they are the main vehicle of disease transmission.”
Mulindwa says much of the awareness was passed through posters that they pinned in the different locations of the university.
On the measures that the university undertook to ensure no case of the Ebola virus was registered in the community, Jimmy Siyasa, the Acting Head of Communication and Public Relations at UCU, said: “As an institution of higher learning with over 11,000 enrolled students, we do not take disease outbreaks lightly.”
The successes registered by UCU in keeping the virus at bay are partly due to the national strategic direction that the country took upon the confirmation of the outbreak in September 2022. For instance, on October 15, 2022, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni imposed a three-week lockdown on movement of vehicles in the districts of Kassanda and Mubende — which were the epicenters of the virus. The lockdown also banned the movement of vehicles and motorcycles into and outside of the two districts located in central Uganda. The Uganda government extended the lockdown on two other occasions, eventually lifting it on December 17, 2022.
