Uganda's health ministry announced on Sunday that 60 people who were being monitored after coming into contact with the Kenyan Ebola patient had finished 21 days of monitoring and been discharged. The announcement came alongside new restrictions requiring Ugandans returning from DR Congo to undergo 21 days of quarantine at their own cost.
The ministry said travellers who had been to DR Congo would not be allowed to transit through Uganda, and that screening had been intensified at Entebbe International Airport, all land border crossings and designated road checkpoints. Health Minister Chris Baryomunsi told the BBC's Newsday programme that only essential travellers from DR Congo would be allowed in and would face "intense public health measures". "All these are measures to ensure that we keep Uganda free of Ebola," he said.
The measures follow two cases in Kenya and Nigeria involving passengers who travelled through Uganda. A Kenyan businessman who flew from DR Congo via Entebbe to Nairobi on October 3 died two days later, and Kenya has since confirmed eight other cases and a second death. A woman related to the businessman died over the weekend, the BBC reported. The patient in Nigeria is the Ugandan-born wife of a Swiss diplomat who had travelled to Kampala for a holiday, according to the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Jean Kaseya.
Both patients passed through Entebbe airport on the same day, but Uganda's health ministry permanent secretary, Diana Atwine, said CCTV footage showed no physical interaction between them. Nigerian authorities said genetic testing found closely related viruses in the two cases, but no direct link had been established.
At a news conference in Kampala on Sunday, Baryomunsi challenged the Swiss conclusion that the Nigerian patient contracted Ebola during a visit to Uganda in September. He said relatives who had previously visited DR Congo had met the woman in a Kampala suburb, and questioned whether that possible route of exposure had been ruled out. "We should speak science, not politics," he said. The health ministry said Uganda and Nigeria were both working to establish her movements, complete travel history and possible routes of exposure. The World Health Organization said on Thursday that the information it had received did not show that the woman herself had travelled to DR Congo.
Uganda has repeatedly stressed that no cases have been reported within its borders. It recorded 20 Ebola cases and two deaths shortly after the outbreak began in DR Congo, and declared its Bundibugyo outbreak over on July 28. The WHO declared the country free of the disease in August.
In DR Congo, where the outbreak began in May, the WHO had recorded 9,704 cases and 4,687 deaths by October 20, according to Al Jazeera. The BBC reports that more than 4,800 people have died since May. The Bundibugyo species behind the outbreak is relatively rare and has no approved vaccine or specific treatment, though trials are under way. Ebola spreads through direct contact with infected bodily fluids, and symptoms can take up to 21 days to appear.