Uganda closes out its Ebola outbreak at 20 cases

Uganda declared itself Ebola-free after the WHO's 42-day wait; 20 cases total, with the virus still circulating in neighbouring Congo.

Ugandan authorities have declared the country free of Ebola, after observing the World Health Organization's recommended 42-day wait — two incubation cycles — from the discharge of the last patient on June 16. Twenty cases were reported in total, and health officials say there is no current indication of further spread inside the country.

The outbreak was imported. Uganda has held from the start that its cases traced to the larger outbreak in Ituri, a remote province of eastern Congo across the border, and that the first patients were Congolese who crossed to seek treatment for an illness not yet identified as Ebola. Congo announced its outbreak on May 15 — the same day Uganda confirmed two cases, one of them a man who had already died — after what health officials believe were weeks of undetected transmission.

Twenty cases and a clean 42 days is what working detection looks like. The gap between an imported chain and a national emergency is now largely response speed, and Uganda's held. The gain is real but bounded: the virus continues to circulate in Congo, and the border that carried it in is still the same border. Watch Ituri.

Source: HumanProgress