The Ebola virus outbreak that started in Uganda about four months ago and killed 55 lives was proclaimed to be over on Wednesday.
At a ceremony in the Mubende area in the country’s capital, where the disease was first discovered in September, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng declared, “We have successfully managed the Ebola outbreak in Uganda.”
The World Health Organization published a statement confirming the action.
According to Aceng, the outbreak of the frequently lethal haemorrhagic fever in the country of East Africa began on January 11 and has now lasted 113 days.
According to WHO, an outbreak of the disease ends when there are no new cases for 42 consecutive days – twice the incubation period of Ebola.
“Uganda put a swift end to the Ebola outbreak by ramping up key control measures such as surveillance, contact tracing and infection, prevention and control,” the WHO statement quoted the minister as saying.
“While we expanded our efforts to put a strong response in place across the nine affected districts, the magic bullet has been our communities who understood the importance of doing what was needed to end the outbreak, and took action.”
WHO said in total there were 142 confirmed cases, 55 confirmed deaths and 87 recovered patients.
It said Uganda’s outbreak was caused by the Sudan Ebola virus, one of six species of the Ebola virus for which no vaccines have yet been approved.
