President Yoweri Museveni has opened up Mubende and Kassanda districts which have been under lockdown following a surge in cases of Ebola Viral Disease (EVD).
In a message read by Vice President Jessica Alupo on Saturday, there are no more admissions in the two districts which recorded the majority of 142 cases. Both districts have been under lockdown since October 15th.
According to Alupo, as of Saturday, there were also no more contacts of the confirmed cases under follow-up. She noted that the country has now gone twenty-four days of the forty-two required by the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a country Ebola-free.
While the districts have been opened up, Alupo said that treatment units including in Kampala which has completed 42 without new cases will remain in place and the health workers will also remain on standby to counter any case that may come up.
She noted that monitoring of Ebola survivors and mortality surveillance which involves testing of all dead bodies in the two districts and Kampala will continue until the elapse of the forty-two days which are two incubation cycles of the Ebola virus.
At the beginning of the month, Uganda received more than 1,000 doses of a trial Ebola Sudan strain vaccine which they anticipated to study using contacts of positive cases as participants.
In an earlier interview, Health Minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng had been asked how the reduction of cases would affect this plan since everything appeared to be set including a newly opened treatment centre in Mulago but not the study participants.
She responded that the outbreak in Uganda is not yet over until the country is declared completely disease free.
Mubende recorded the highest number of deaths at 29 followed by Kassanda which had 22 deaths. A total of 56 deaths have been recorded in the current outbreak.