Doctors Without Borders sets up Ebola treatment center in Uganda to support the government

The NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has set up an Ebola treatment center in the Ugandan district of Mubende, in the central region of the country, in the interest of responding to the recently declared outbreak in support of the Ugandan Ministry of Health.

The organization is also considering opening a second center in Madudu, a town 25 kilometers further north where the first person to die from the Ebola outbreak was from and where several suspected cases have been reported, MSF said in a statement.

Since the beginning of the outbreak, 58 possible cases have been reported, and 11 deaths have been counted, according to data from the Ugandan Ministry of Health, which is why it has asked MSF for help to gather health, logistical and epidemiological equipment to intervene as soon as possible.

In this regard, MSF has detailed that, “immediately after” the declaration of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda — which followed the detection of an infected person in the center of the country — the Ugandan health authorities requested support in their efforts in the fight against the spread of the disease.

“From MSF, we are assembling a team composed of medical, epidemiology and logistics staff with experience in hemorrhagic fever case management. The plan is for the team to be ready to start work early next week,” the organization said in a statement.

The NGO also expressed the willingness of the country’s Ministry of Health to intervene wherever needs are identified, while noting that the priority is to improve patient care within the existing structure.

The last Ebola outbreak in the country occurred in 2019, an occasion when MSF also intervened in support of Ugandan health authorities in the management of people who had been in contact with confirmed cases.