Amidst Ebola outbreak in Africa’s Uganda, a three-week lockdown has been announced in two districts. As a result, entertainment areas, nightclubs and bars, as well as places of worship will be shut in Mubende district and its neighboring Kassanda. A curfew will follow the lockdown in these areas.
The lockdown measure contradicts Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni’s earlier statement in which he had claimed that there was no need for such moves. The latest outbreak has killed 19 people among 58 confirmed cases. The actual number of both deaths and cases might be higher.
Mubende district, which is 80km (50 miles) from the capital Kampala, first witnessed an outbreak of Ebola in early September and became an epicenter since.
Lockdown measures “temporary”
President Museveni had earlier rejected imposition of lockdowns on the notion that it is an airborne disease and it did not need any strict measures like COVID-19. On Saturday he stopped all movement from and in Mubende and Kassanda districts for a period of 21 days.
The restrictions include putting a bar on the movement of all kinds of transport except cargo trucks. He called them “temporary measures” in a televised address. He said, “We should all cooperate with authorities so we bring this outbreak to an end in the shortest possible time.”
The president has given strict orders to police to arrest anyone who is suspected of the virus and refuse to isolate. The latest outbreak belongs to the Sudan strain and no approved vaccine has been found of the strain. However, the Zaire strain that killed 11,000 people across West Africa from 2013-16 has a vaccine against it.
In the latest outbreak the first confirmed death was that of a 24-year-old man in Mubende. The outbreak killed six of his family members as well.
The Ebola virus then reached Kampala killing its first host in October. However, health officials said the city was virus-free, as the man who died had traveled from Mubende.
