2,700 teachers to fight Mpox in schools

A patient who presented signs and symptoms of mpox at Laropi Health center in Moyo District on August 19, 2024. PHOTO/COURTESY
What you need to know:
- The government has developed operational guidelines for schools on prevention, detection, and control of the deadly disease.
A total of 2,702 teachers have been trained to help prevent, detect, and control the spread of Mpox in schools. The Minister of Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, said the viral disease had spread to 71 districts and posed a huge danger to learners as schools reopen for the first term on February 3.
“As part of ongoing efforts to strengthen school health capacities, we have trained 2,702 teachers from 1,440 schools in highrisk districts and plan to orient more teachers, and school health focal persons (school nurses) before schools reopen,” she said.
“To intensify the risk perception of Mpox in schools, we developed child-friendly information, education, and communication materials, which were disseminated in various schools,” Dr Aceng said last Friday in Kampala during a media update.
The minister said the Health ministry in collaboration with the Education ministry have developed operational guidelines for schools on prevention, detection, and control of Mpox to keep the learners and school staff safe and avoid disruption of school activities. She said her ministry would disseminate a circular to schools and other training institutions aimed at preventing the spread of Mpox.
Dr Aceng also revealed that her ministry and that of Education would orient district education officers, district inspector of schools, and frontline teachers on the prevention and control of the disease. She urged the school heads to intensify the reporting of any learner presenting with signs of Mpox, which presents with rash and other symptoms that include flu-like illnesses such as fever, headache, and malaise.
The ministry says the Mpox outbreak has continued to expand, with a cumulative total of 1,712 laboratory-confirmed cases across the country, with 362 of the cases being children. But the ministry also says at least eight districts have reported no new cases in the last six weeks, with Adjumani District entering the elimination phase, having reported no cases for more than three months.
The contagious viral disease that broke out in late July last year is prevalent among mobile workers, especially truck drivers and boda boda riders, vendors, bar attendants, commercial sex workers, and casual labourers.
Epicentre
The Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area, which comprises Kampala, Mukono, and Wakiso, remains the epicentre of the outbreak, accounting for 73 percent of the total cases. Transmission hotspots have been identified as Bwaise and Kawaala.
Dr Aceng also said the country is expecting 10,000 Mpox doses next week to fight the escalating new infections. She said the vaccines would be given to high-risk groups such as truck drivers, boda boda riders, vendors, bar attendants, bibanda workers, commercial sex workers, and casual labourers, especially in the transmission hotspots identified as Bwaise and Kawaala in Kawempe Division of Kampala.
“We expect the vaccines in the country next week and the vaccination will target high-risk populations, close contact of confirmed cases, and frontline health workers in areas with active transmission,” Dr Aceng said.
Speaking at the same media briefing, Ms Mary Boyd, the United States director of the Centers for Diseases Control in Uganda, described Mpox as a global threa“Our administration has committed and donated a million doses for affected countries, which has come from a pool of other countries such as Canada, the European Union, Gavi and Africa Centers for Disease Control (ACDC),” she said.
“These doses have been put into a pool and this access and mechanism decides, which countries will receive them, and Uganda will be receiving an allocation of 10,000 doses in the next few days,” she added. Col Henry Kyobe, the Mpox incident commander at the health ministry, said they are handling the outbreak before passing on the tasks to the local government leaders, especially in the hotspots.
“We request the local governments to give guidance on how to manage and regulate gatherings to limit further transmission. But this doesn’t mean that we have stopped gatherings, for instance, we had Nyege Nyege, which was successful and we never had any blow-up of transmission from the festival,” he said.