Ebola virus spreads in Uganda – 2 deaths, 27 in contact – while WHO calls emergency meeting

Local and international health authorities are trying to stifle an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, which spread this week after a massive epidemic that has lasted for several months in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. The epidemic has made 2 084 sick and has killed 1 405 since last August.

Uganda announced the first case following the outbreak on Tuesday, 11 June. The case concerned a five-year-old Congolese boy who had crossed the border with his family a few days earlier. The Ugandan Ministry of Health announced shortly after the boy succumbed to his infection on the morning of June 12. At that time, two of her family members were also tested positive: the boy's grandmother, aged 50, and her 3-year-old brother.

Today, June 13, the ministry announced that the grandmother had also passed. At an urgent meeting on the situation, officials from Uganda and the DRC mutually decided to return the remaining family to the DRC. This includes the 3-year-old boy with a confirmed case, as well as the mother, the father, a 6-month-old brother and their housekeeper. Health officials have noted that these last four family members are all considered "suspect cases".

With the return of the 3-year-old girl in the DRC, there are currently no confirmed cases in Uganda, health officials said. However, three unrelated family members, who had contact with the 5 year old, are now considered to be suspect cases. They are being held in isolation in an Ebola treatment unit in Bwera, western Uganda. It is on the border with the DRC and is the place where the child of 5 years was treated.

Officials identified 27 other people who had contact with the deceased boy or with suspected cases.

As such, Uganda remains in "Ebola response mode," the ministry said. The DRC has donated 400 doses of Ebola vaccine and Ugandan stakeholders plan to begin ring vaccination on Friday 14 June. This effort aims to immunize contacts and case contacts in an attempt to strategically counteract the spread of the disease. The World Health Organization has administered 4,000 additional doses of vaccine, which represents an efficiency of 97.5% according to preliminary data.

Also on Friday, WHO will convene an emergency committee to determine whether the outbreak is now a "public health emergency of international concern", or PHEIC. Declaring the epidemic as such would signal the need for an international response and would likely result in more resources to curb the spread of viruses.

The epidemic in the DRC has raged since last August in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri in the DRC. The authorities had recorded 2,084 cases by June 11 (1,990 confirmed, 94 probable cases) and 1,405 deaths (1,311 confirmed, 94 probable). These figures make the epidemic the second largest after only one outbreak in West Africa in 2014, which has left more than 28,000 people sick and killed 11,000 people.

Until now, ongoing violence and conflict have severely hampered medical responses to the epidemic. Activists have regularly attacked medical facilities and last month an epidemiologist deployed by WHO was killed in an attack.

North Kivu and Ituri are located in the east of the country, on the border with South Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda. Despite local challenges in disease response efforts, WHO officials have so far determined that the epidemic is not a PHEIC. Friday's meeting will be the third to assess the possible status of PHEIC for this outbreak.