“Witchdoctors, traditionalists, and herbalists should not accept sick people now. Suspend what you are doing,” Yoweri Museveni said in a bid to curb Ebola patients from seeking traditional healers.
The Ugandan President’s directives came after a regional cabinet gathering in Kampala to discuss how to deal with the outbreak after Uganda reported its first casualty from the highly contagious virus since 2019.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization, addressed the gathering from Geneva clinical trials on treatments for the new strain of ebola virus known as the Sudan ebola virus, for which there is presently no vaccine, which might begin in a matter of weeks.
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WHO reported there have been 54 confirmed cases and 19 deaths since the outbreak was first reported on September 20, in Mubende’s central district.
According to Museveni, only one tragic case has been confirmed, a 45-year-old man of Congolese nationality who had fled isolation in Mubende after a family member passed away and sought out the assistance of a witch doctor.
Museveni added that the man passed away from the virus in a hospital in Kampala and that roughly a dozen persons who had contracted with him are currently under quarantine.
“Witchdoctors, traditionalists, and herbalists should not accept sick people now. Suspend what you are doing,” Museveni said.
“There is no witchcraft here. Ebola is a disease. The communities in the affected areas should know Ebola is deadly and spread through contact with the affected person.”
“Unfortunately, the Ebola vaccines that have been so effective in controlling recent outbreaks in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) are not effective against the type of ebola virus which is responsible for the current outbreak in Uganda,” Tedros told Wednesday’s meeting.
Ebola is a deadly disease caused by a virus. There are four strains and four of them can make people sick. After entering the body it kills cells making some of them explode. It wrecks the immune system causes heavy bleeding inside the body and damages almost every organ.
Ebola gets its name from the Ebola River, which is near one of the villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the disease first appeared.
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