Health experts rule out Ebola as cause of sudden death in Nebbi
A health worker disinfects mattresses at Mubende Regional Referral Hospital on September 21, 2022. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- Dr Denis Oloya, the Koboko District Health Officer (DHO) told Monitor on June 12 that the surveillance team in the district had stepped up efforts with their counterparts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) to investigate the case in question.
Officials from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Nebbi District health teams have said laboratory tests by the Uganda Virus Research Institute ruled out Ebola in the ongoing investigation into a sudden death in the district.
“The alert was received on Wednesday night and samples were picked on Thursday and came out negative for Ebola, Marburg, Rift Valley Fever (RVF), and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF). [The samples have] then [been] subjected to Yellow Fever test and awaiting results,” the WHO country representative, Dr Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam told Monitor.
The WHO country representative was responding to information that sources shared with Monitor. According to the sources, a female health worker in Nebbi, a district in West Nile, who had symptoms suggestive of the Ebolavirus disease, died in a health facility in the district. The deceased, according to sources, had previously gone to see relatives in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The sources also told this publication that she was first treated in a clinic and after she died, the clinic was indefinitely closed, a claim which Dr Justine Okwairwoth, the District Health Officer dismissed.
Dr Okwairwoth said the deceased was buried on June 15. He said the operations of the facility where she died had not been suspended.
“We were investigating a sudden death but we have also received the results from the Uganda Virus Research Institute and it was a negative test. Of course, as we were still waiting for results, we had to still take precautions in the burial which we successfully also handled yesterday [Saturday],” the DHO said.
Officials from the Health Ministry said they were still gathering facts behind the suspected outbreak. They did not get back by press time on June 16.
This information is coming a few days after a senior medical officer in Koboko District also found in West Nile, said health workers had been put on the alert, following a suspected yellow fever case reported the previous week.
Dr Denis Oloya, the Koboko District Health Officer (DHO) told Monitor on June 12 that the surveillance team in the district had stepped up efforts with their counterparts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) to investigate the case in question.
