Ebola: Health ministry asks Shs28b more

Drills. Health workers at Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital undergo training in Ebola case management on June 14. PHOTO BY ALEX ASHABA.

What you need to know:

  • The blood samples tested at Uganda Virus Research Institute also showed he was negative for other VH fevers, including Marburg, Crimean Congo Heamorrhagic Fever, Rift Valley fever and Sosuga, despite exhibiting their symptoms of fever and bleeding from the mouth.

Kampala. The Ministry of Health is in need of $7.5million (about Shs27.8b) to respond to the Ebola outbreak in the country, which has since claimed three people.

Mr Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the senior ministry spokesperson, said the money is only enough to facilitate the western district of Kasese, where the haemorrhagic fever was confirmed early this month and not the whole country.

“It [the money] will facilitate our health workers who are managing different health facilities, manning all points of entry, people doing outreaches, among others mass media messages,” Mr Ainebyoona said on Monday.

Temporary measure
Mr Ainebyoona also said the money, expected to come from both government and other funders, will “just take us for some period of time.”

The funds are on top of the $18m (about Shs66.8b) that Ministry of Health used during the 10 months of preparation, according to the Ebola accountability task force.

By press time, Uganda had not registered any new confirmed Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) case in Kasese or any other area, although there are 110 contacts to the confirmed Ebola cases in Kagando and Bwera, who are being followed up daily.

There have been Ebola scares in the country, with the most recent one recorded at the China-Uganda Friendship Hospital Naguru in Nakawa Division as patients and some health workers dashed out of the wards after one of the patients presented with Ebola symptoms.

The Ebola scare at the hospital, also commonly known as Naguru hospital, is among those that have caused panic in different districts, including Mbarara, Hoima and Pakwach.
An isolation camp has since been established at the hospital to prepare for any unlikely event of Ebola outbreak in Kampala given that the country is still at high risk.

“It is better to create an isolation unit because you don’t know how it will end because you cannot be keeping the patient at the general ward,” Health minister Ruth Aceng said last week.
Meanwhile, the results of blood samples taken from a 19-year-old male patient who died on Wednesday night at Naguru hospital after presenting symptoms of viral heamorrhagic fever (VHF) have shown he was negative for Ebola.

The blood samples tested at Uganda Virus Research Institute also showed he was negative for other VH fevers, including Marburg, Crimean Congo Heamorrhagic Fever, Rift Valley fever and Sosuga, despite exhibiting their symptoms of fever and bleeding from the mouth.