In a presidential media appearance broadcasted among Uganda’s mainstream media, the president of Uganda together with government authorities on Saturday announced and imposed a travel lockdown on two Ebola-hit districts of Mubende and Kasanda as part of efforts to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola disease.
The temporally measures announced by President Yoweri Museveni mean residents of the two districts can’t travel into or out of those areas by private or public means. Cargo vehicles and others transiting from Kampala, the capital, to southwestern Uganda are still allowed to operate, he announced.
Boda-bodas (motorbikes) commonly used to transport passengers were also banned. All entertainment places, including bars, as well as places of worship are ordered closed, and all burials in those districts must be supervised by health officials, the president said. A nighttime curfew was also imposed.
According to the announcement by the president, these are temporary measures to control the spread of Ebola and will last for atleast 21 days.
Ebola has infected 58 people in the East African country since Sept. 20, when authorities declared an outbreak. At least 19 people have died, including four health workers. Ugandan authorities were not quick in detecting the outbreak, which began infecting people in a farming community in August as the “strange illness” described by local authorities.
The new measures come amid concern that some patients in the Ebola hot spots could surreptitiously try to seek treatment elsewhere—as did one man who fled Mubende and died at a hospital in Kampala earlier this month, rattling health officials.
Ugandan authorities have documented more than 1,100 contacts of known Ebola patients, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Sudan strain of Ebola, for which there is no proven vaccine, is circulating in the country of 45 million people.
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