ANOTHER OUTBREAK HITS UGANDA
(Posted 17th August 2013)
Government sources yesterday late afternoon confirmed the presence of at least one confirmed case of the Congo Crimean virus, which causes a lesser kind of hemorrhagic fever, not as deadly as Ebola or Marburg in the recent past but a contagious disease nevertheless.
The alpha patient has reportedly died and one more patient been admitted to a local hospital and is under strict quarantine similar to practiced during past outbreaks of Ebola and Marburg in the country, with health ministry personnel reacting quickly once the symptoms had been communicated to them and the Uganda Virus Research Institute confirmed the presence of the virus.
Several individuals thought to have been in contact with the two initial patients have also been taken into isolation to prevent the spread of the disease.
The location of the single outbreak was given as the recently established district of Agago in the North of Uganda, and suspicions are now flying high and low of how the virus could have been transmitted, with ticks or other insects very likely to be the source. This is the first ever such recorded case in Uganda and health ministry staff are working hand in hand with WHO staffers and other virus research personnel to learn as much about the virus as possible. Congo Crimean has a fatality rate of some 40 percent, unlike the more potent Ebola and Marburg variants, where over 90 percent of the patient normally die.
Tourism stakeholders were quick out of the starting blocks reassuring their clientele that the location was distant from where any tourist would pass on a standard or even tailored itinerary and pointed to the WHO communiqué that NO travel advisories were needed due to the location and being contained already.
Open and ready to do business in the face of adversity, a hallmark of The Pearl of Africa.
