After a nearly four-month Ebola outbreak that it briefly struggled to contain, Uganda last week finally declared itself disease-free, managing to control the spread of the disease despite the absence of a proven vaccine against the viral strain in question.
This was the country’s eighth Ebola outbreak since 2000, after the first and most deadly one that killed more than half of the 425 people it infected, reports Reuters.
The latest outbreak killed 55 of the 143 people infected since September, according to Health Ministry figures. Six of the fatalities were health workers.
Last week’s declaration followed Uganda’s completion of 42 days with no active cases, which represents two full incubation periods of the virus.
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni said a two-week delay in declaring the outbreak after the first probable death from Ebola meant “the opportunity for immediate quarantine of contacts was lost”.
However, health officials were able to turn the tide on the disease by November after imposing a lockdown on affected districts.
Ebola spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person and has a fatality rate of about 50%. More than 11 300 people died during the 2013-2016 outbreak in West Africa.
Unlike the more common strain of the virus, Ebola Zaire, which has been behind several recent epidemics in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, the strain behind Uganda’s outbreak, Ebola Sudan, has no proven vaccine.
Even so, experts said Uganda’s experience battling previous outbreaks of Ebola and its viral cousin Marburg helped its response.
The country’s speed in ultimately containing cases, however, meant planned trials of vaccine candidates never got off the ground.
In December, Uganda received three vaccines – one by the University of Oxford and Serum Institute of India, another by the Sabin Vaccine Institute and a third by Merck – meant for people in contact with confirmed cases.
But by that point, there were no new cases. The World Health Organisation said experts would meet on this week to discuss the next steps for the vaccines.
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