The Ministry of Health has announced that seven testing sites have been established for Ebola in different parts of the country, as one of the steps undertaken towards preparedness of the outbreak. The sites are in the hospitals of Rwamagana (Rwamagana District), Gisenyi Rubavu District), Ruhengeri (Musanze District), Kibuye (Karongi District), CHUB (Huye District), Nyarugenge (Nyarugenge District) and Gihundwe in Rusizi District. According to officials from Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) they have put together a multi-disciplinary team including clinicians working in all health facilities and lab technicians and are all involved in the response. To ensure maximum preparedness, simulation exercises were carried out during this past weekend at hospitals in areas bordering Uganda while more are to be carried out throughout this week. Ebola was recently identified in Uganda where at least 31 cases had been confirmed as of last week, with six deaths. Speaking to The New Times, Dr Edson Rwagasore, the Division Manager, Public Health Surveillance and Emergency Preparedness and Response said that the preparedness is being done at different levels but the main focus is on preventing the importation of cases. Rwanda has not recorded a single case. “We are doing this through deploying people along borders to do screening for people who are coming in especially those from affected areas.” Rwagasore explained that the rapid response teams set up at all the above-mentioned hospitals and have been trained, and they will also train other healthcare workers ensure many of them are able to identify cases as soon as possible. He added that the community health workers and youth volunteers are going to be helping with screening people in homes, and send those who present signs to hospitals. “We are decentralizing our lab capacity; we identified seven testing sites now for testing Ebola, we are in the process of not just training but also providing testing kits to equip health facilities,” he said. He added that Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) are being distributed to frontline workers in the healthcare system. According to the health ministry, there is no vaccine rolled out yet for this type of Ebola identified in Uganda, but health officials have assured that research is ongoing to manufacture the vaccine for this type of virus. Ebola can be transmitted through an infected person’s body fluids and its symptoms include fever, joint pain, headache, sore throat, fatigue, diarrhea, vomiting, skin rash, red eyes, stomach ache and bleeding through different body parts.
