Ebola causes panic in Ugandan health workers
Published 11:21 pm Thursday, December 6, 2007
KAMPALA, Uganda — Health workers are among the dead in an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, spreading panic among doctors and nurses needed to help treat victims of the highly contagious disease, officials said.
Doctors and nurses did not at first know what they were facing, so failed to protect themselves, according to a lawmaker representing the region at the center of the outbreak. Experts say the Ebola subtype that sparked the outbreak is new and the classic Ebola symptoms were not always present, slowing diagnosis.
“We are facing a crisis in health care here,” said Jane Alisemera, the lawmaker representing the district 120 miles from Kampala where the outbreak has claimed at least 18 lives. Health workers “are scared and morale is low.”
“There is a very big shortage of nursing staff now at the hospital,” she said.
According to the Ministry of Health’s latest figures, the area has 93 suspected cases of Ebola, among them 22 deaths. Four health workers were among the dead in an outbreak that began on Aug. 20, but the disease was not confirmed as Ebola until Nov. 29.
“The staff at the hospital didn’t know they were dealing with a highly contagious outbreak so they took inadequate precautions,” Alisemera said. The hospital did not have protective clothing at the time of the outbreak, she said, though aid agencies have since donated supplies.
Local media reported that nursing staff in the isolation unit at Bundibugyo hospital were working without gloves and masks, and that the door of the ward was not locked.
