Locals accuse pastors, traditional healers of Ebola misinformation
The Mubende Ebola burial team load a casket containing a body of an Ebola victim onto a pick-up truck recently. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- Religious leaders, witchdoctors and traditional healers in the rural settings of the district have reportedly been telling residents that they will not get infected if they continue to pray or give offerings in form of money, according to local leaders.
- Last month, President Museveni ordered traditional healers and religious leaders to stop treating or receiving sick people in a bid to halt the spread of Ebola.
- bola is spread through bodily fluids, with common symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea.
Several residents of Mukono District in central Uganda have accused religious leaders, traditional healers and witchdoctors of spreading wrong information about Ebola Virus Disease which has so far 135 people and killed 53 in the country.
Religious leaders, witchdoctors and traditional healers in the rural settings of the district have reportedly been telling residents that they will not get infected if they continue to pray or give offerings in form of money, according to local leaders.
Kyampisi Sub County chairperson, Mr Jamir Yiga said the pastors and witchdoctors are offering gullible residents and followers false miraculous powers from their gods and African spirits for protection against the highly contagious disease.
He said tactics such as ritual cleansing and exorcism which the false pastors and traditional healers deployed during Covid-19 which claimed hundreds of lives in the country are the same they have redeployed to defraud unsuspecting followers.
"A group of born-gain believers that claimed to be from Miracle Center approached us and assured locals how they shall never contract Ebola if they prayed for us and thereafter, they asked for money as offertory,” said Ms Agatha Nankya, a resident of Sonde village Goma division Mukono Municipality.
According to Hakim Mukasa, one of the residents of Gunda village, traditional healers in his neighborhood have for long been discouraging residents against taking vaccines against viruses such as Covid-19 and Ebola.
Last month, President Museveni ordered traditional healers and religious leaders to stop treating or receiving sick people in a bid to halt the spread of Ebola.
The directive came after a 45-year-old man of Congolese origin who had fled isolation in Mubende District after a relative died, and had sought out the help of a witchdoctor.
He later succumbed to the disease in a hospital in the capital, Museveni said, adding that about two dozen people who had been in contact with the man were now in quarantine.
Ebola is spread through bodily fluids, with common symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea.
Outbreaks are difficult to contain, especially in urban environments.
People who are infected do not become contagious until symptoms appear, which is after an incubation period of between two and 21 days.
The outbreak in Uganda was declared on September 20, and eight days later President Museveni declared any nationwide lockdown was "not necessary."
In October, however, he imposed a lockdown on two districts, Mubende and Kassanda, setting a dusk-to-dawn curfew, banning travel and closing markets, bars and churches for 21 days. The lockdown was early this week extended for three more weeks.
Uganda's last recorded fatality from a previous Ebola outbreak was in 2019.
The particular strain now circulating in Uganda is known as the Sudan Ebola virus, for which there is currently no vaccine, although there are several candidate vaccines heading towards clinical trials.
The worst Ebola epidemic in West Africa between 2013 and 2016 killed more than 11,300 people.
