Uganda has confirmed three new cases of Ebola, bringing the total number of infections in the country to five, the Health Ministry announced on Saturday.
Among the newly identified patients are a Ugandan driver who transported the nation’s initial confirmed case, and a health worker who contracted the virus while providing care for the same individual.
A Congolese woman also tested positive for the disease.
It comes after the World Health Organization has raised the risk of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola turning into a national outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo to “very high”.
The strain, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment, was declared an emergency of international concern by the WHO on Sunday.
“We are now revising our risk assessment to very high at the national level, high at the regional level, and low at global level,” WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
So far, 82 cases have been confirmed in Congo, with seven confirmed deaths, 177 suspected deaths and almost 750 suspected cases.
“The potential of this virus spreading rapidly is high, very high, and that changed the whole dynamic,” said Abdirahman Mahamud, WHO Director of Health Emergency Alert & Response Operations.
Measures taken in Uganda, including intense contact tracing and cancellation of a mass gathering, appear to have been effective in stemming the spread of the virus, Tedros said.
A US national who was working in Congo has been confirmed positive and transferred to Germany for care.
“We are also aware of reports today about another American national with a high-risk contact who has been transferred to the Czech Republic,” Tedros added.
The WHO’s chief scientist, Sylvie Briand, said an antiviral treatment called Obeldesivir could be used among Ebola contacts to prevent them from developing the disease.
Obeldesivir is an experimental oral Covid antiviral drug from Gilead Sciences.
“This is a promising treatment drug, but it has still to be implemented under a very, very strict protocol,” Briand said.
Britain will provide up to £20 million to contain the outbreak of Ebola in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, it announced today.
The money, provided by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, will help the international effort to contain the virus through support for frontline health workers, improved infection control and disease surveillance.
