Tuesday 31 July 2012

'SA safe from Ebola'

South Africans need not be worried about contracting the Ebola virus after a new outbreak of the disease in Uganda.

The SA National Institute for Communicable Diseases said the risk of South Africans being infected was "extremely low".

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has placed a ban on physical contact in the country after the virus was reported in the capital, Kampala, for the first time.

The institute's spokesman, Professor Lucile Blumberg, said yesterday: "There is no travel restriction. It is unlikely that patients from the Kibaale district, Uganda, who are very sick, will find their way here. One does need direct contact with infected patients to become ill."

It was reported yesterday that Museveni said the Ministry of Health in Uganda was tracing all people who have had contact with the victims, adding that 14 people had died since the virus surfaced in western Uganda three weeks ago.

Two cases have since been reported in the capital, with one victim reported dead in Kampala's Mulago Hospital.

Museveni called on people not to bury those who has died from Ebola-like symptoms. "Instead, call health workers because they know how to do it," he said.

Seven doctors and 13 health workers at Mulago Hospital are said to be in quarantine after the virus was identified there.

SAA said last night that it was monitoring the situation in Kampala with the help of stakeholders such as the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

''As such, our operations to our Uganda destination, ie Entebbe, will continue as per the norm . . . in the meantime we would like to encourage travellers to take the necessary general health precautions to avoid contracting the disease.''

Stephen Bayaruhanga, health secretary of the affected Kibaale district, said yesterday that possible cases of Ebola, at first concentrated in a single village, are now being reported in other villages. But many people suspected to have contracted Ebola are unwilling to be taken to hospital, he said, because they are terrified of contracting the disease if Ebola is not what they have.

- Times Live

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