The Government of Tanzania is sending a team of medical experts to Kagera region in the north to investigate reports of an outbreak of a deadly disease suspected to be ebola in border villages in neighbouring Uganda.
The deputy minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Lucy Nkya, said in Dar es Salaam Wednesday that the team will comprise medical experts from her ministry, the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) and the Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH). “You are just breaking the news (on the outbreak of the disease in Uganda) to me. Thanks, and I will make sure that a medical team is dispatched to Kagera region as soon as possible,” she told Tanzania’s The Citizen daily in a telephone interview.
Reports from Uganda quoted health officials as saying that a disease that has been killing people in Kitgum, Abim and Agago districts could be a new strain of ebola. The situation report of November 26 indicated a cumulative figure of 32 cases, with fatality rate of 25 per cent since its outbreak in Balang village in Mutu parish in Paimol Sub-County, Agago district early this month. A National Professional Officer with the World Health Organisation in Gulu, Dr Emmanuel Tenywa, said a total of 19 people were currently admitted at an isolation ward in Kalongo Hospital with acute signs and symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting, and severe frontal headache, sometimes associated with pain in the eye without conjunctivitis and blood stains on their stool. He said already one of the health workers in the hospital had developed the disease symptoms after she accidentally came into contact with vomit of a patient. The Kitgum district Surveillance Officer, Ms Grace Ogwang, said four people had so far died of the disease from their homes, while four others were still admitted at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
source : The Citizen via AfricaReview.com