As Marburg Disease Spreads Fear In Rwanda, Uganda Takes Precautions

Posted by: Eninu William in Health October 1, 2024

Following the death of at least 8 people in neighboring Rwanda due to the Marburg Disease (MVD) Uganda’s Ministry of Health Epidemics Monitoring and Response Department has put the country on high alert.

As of today, health authorities in Rwanda have reported 8 deaths and 26 infections from the deadly disease.

It should be noted that there is a lot of frequent movement between the people of Uganda and Rwanda at the South-Western border. This therefore means that if a lot of precautions are not taken, the disease is likely to kill many people as 24-88% of those who contract it usually succumb to it.

Dr. Allan Muruta from the Ministry of Health said that cross border measures are being strengthened between Uganda and Rwanda.

“We have put up a checklist to see which aspects we should strengthen as a country. This is for readiness to prevent and detect the Marburg [virus] in the neighboring country,” he said.

Additionally, he said: “The checklist ranges from coordination, surveillance, risk communication, and risk management. This is to ensure we are ready and ensure we sensitize people on how Marburg looks like. And how to detect, isolate and handle.”

Furthermore, Dr. Muruta is very confident that the country is capable of handling and preventing the spread of this disease from other countries.

“We successfully prevented the one (Marburg virus disease outbreak) in Tanzania one year ago from coming to Uganda. We hope even this one we will manage,” he said.

Uganda last experienced the outbreak of this disease in 2017. However, it was only a few cases and it was managed by the health authorities. Some of the symptoms of Marburg include severe body weakness, severe headache and high fever.

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