KAMPALA – The minister of health Dr Jane Ruth Aceng has on June 18 announced that the ministry has been given clearance to bring Ebola treatments in the country a week after the deadly disease spread over the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Happy to inform you all that we got clearance from both Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST) and National Drug Authority (NDA) to bring in the Therapeutic treatment for Ebola patients in the country,” she twitted.
Dr Aceng did not give more details on which drugs had been approved, or what quantities would be brought in.
However, the New York Times has reported that according to Mr Tarik Jasarevic, the World Health Organisation Spokesperson, the treatments approved for shipment to Uganda are Mapp Biopharmaceutical’s ZMapp, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc’s Regeneron and Remdesivir, made by Gilead Sciences.
On Saturday, June 15, the Ministry began an exercise of vaccinating residents against the killer disease in Kasese.
The Ministry of Health confirmed an Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in Kasese District, Uganda on June 10.
According to the ministry, Uganda has so far registered three (3) confirmed cases of Ebola who travelled from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on the 10th June 2019.
A five-year-old boy was the first confirmed Ebola victim, his death was shortly followed by a 50-year-old Congolese woman and later boy’s three-year-old brother died too.
The Ministry of Health has on Thursday, June 13 banned all public gatherings within Kasese district in a bid to prevent the deadly disease from spreading further