Uganda has declared the Ebola virus outbreak, which began four months ago and claimed the lives of 55 people, to be over, on Wednesday.
“We have successfully controlled the Ebola outbreak in Uganda,” Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng said at a ceremony in Mubende, Uganda’s central district, where the disease was discovered in September.
The World Health Organization also confirmed the move in a statement.
According to the health minister, January 11 marked 113 days since the outbreak of the often fatal haemorrhagic fever in the East African country.
A disease outbreak is declared over when there are no new cases for 42 days in a row, which is twice the incubation period of Ebola, according to WHO.
“Uganda put an end to the Ebola outbreak quickly by ramping up key control measures such as surveillance, contact tracing and infection, prevention and control,” the minister was quoted as saying in a WHO statement.
“While we expanded our efforts to put a strong response in place across the nine affected districts, our communities who understood the importance of doing what was needed to end the outbreak and took action have been the magic bullet.”
The WHO reported 142 confirmed cases, 55 confirmed deaths, and 87 recovered patients.
It stated that Uganda’s outbreak was caused by the Sudan Ebola virus, one of six Ebola virus species for which no vaccines have been approved.
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