Ebola in Congo: Government warns on eating wild meat

Kampala- Ministry of Health has warned Ugandans residing in districts bordering Ebola-stricken DR Congo, against the consumption of bush meat through which the disease is said to be spread.

Leaders in DR Congo on Tuesday confirmed 20 people had died from the haemorrhagic fever in and around Mangina, a densely populated town about 100km from the Uganda’s Mpondwe border post in the Western district of Kasese.

Ms Sarah Opendi, the State minister of Health in-charge of General Duties, warned people in Kasese and Bundibugyo districts among others, neighboring Congo’s Mangina town, against consuming wild animals such as monkeys and birds.

The consumption of bush meat is a common practice in the districts.
“It is from where they get this Ebola and we have talked to the people in these districts to stop eating bats and monkeys. People should also ensure good sanitation and stop shaking hands,” Ms Opendi warned in a telephone interview with Daily Monitor yesterday.

Measures
The Ministry has also reactivated surveillance teams and task forces at Uganda’s different border points with Congo to control movements and conduct screening for those entering the country.

The same measures have been reinstated at the airport, according to Ms Opendi.

“Fortunately, the government in Congo has taken up the matter seriously,” the minister added.

The deadly haemorrhagic fever recurs in Congo hardly a week after the country declared the end of an earlier Ebola outbreak that occurred in the northwest Equateur province ,where 54 cases were confirmed in May this year.