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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | Health and Sanitation |
|---|---|
| located: | Uganda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea |
| editor: | Bob Koigi |
Days after Uganda declared an outbreak of Ebola, more countries are heightening surveillance and activating response strategies in a bid to prevent cross-border infections. The outbreak of the Sudan strain of the disease - which so far has led to 23 confirmed and suspected deaths, and another 36 probable cases - has brought to the fore the increasing global threats to public health following the COVID-19 and Monkeypox outbreaks.
It has also shone the spotlight on the need for coordinated responses from governments, the private sector, regional and international bodies by ensuring medical buildings of high capacity, adequate funding for medical interventions and enhancing awareness to tame misinformation and disinformation. The east-African nation has experienced four outbreaks of the disease, the deadliest of which was in 2000 that claimed over 200 lives.
Yet, Uganda isn’t the only country to have borne the brunt of the disease. Between 2014 and 2015, West Africa experienced the most fatal outbreak to have ever been recorded, lasting 36 months before being contained and causing over 11,000 deaths. The cases were mainly concentrated in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Congo on the other hand, has recorded 15 outbreaks since 1976, with the outbreak of 2018-2020 claiming close to 3,500 infections. It recently declared the end of the 15th outbreak after 42 days without any confirmed case. These countries however are ever on high alert in case of a resurgence of cases or an outbreak of a new strain; they therefore offer poignant lessons on management and containment.
While health officials, governments and international bodies such as the World Health Organization put their best foot forward in ensuring that the requisite systems and processes are embraced to tame further spread, the world must unite in intensifying surveillance, learning from interventions that have worked and investing in coordinated responses before the disease metamorphoses into a full-brown global public health catastrophe.
Photo by Ninno JackJr
