20110101
monitor

To suppress any continued spread of the yellow fever, government has dispatched a national task force to the affected districts in the north to sensitise people and identify any new case of the disease.

Headed by the Minister of State for Health in-charge of General Duties, Dr Kenya Mugisha, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr Asuman Lukwago, said the task force that also has a village unit, will follow the will to sensitise the people on the importance of taking the vaccine to avoid resistance.

Cases of the disease have been cited in Abim, Agago, Lawo, Pader, Kitgum, Gulu, Arua, Kaboong, Kotido and Lira. The task force includes experts from the World Health Organisation and USAID among other health civil society organisations.

"The task force is monitoring and is engaged in active surveillance looking for any case of the disease. We are looking at the source and how to stop the source", said Dr Lukwago.

However, out of the required 2.5 million doses of yellow fever vaccine required to immunise people in northern Uganda, it appears the government may only receive 750 dosages, an amount less than half of what is required.

Dr Lukwago told this newspaper yesterday that there are only 1.5m available dosages that have to be shared between Uganda and Cameroon, which has also had an outbreak of the disease.

Although the ministry has requested for Shs10 billion to procure the drug, vaccination may not start tomorrow as earlier scheduled because there is procedure to follow before the money is released.

However, Dr Lukwago said everything will be in place, including enough drugs to vaccinate the 2.5 million people by the end of next week. Despite the stringent measures to curb the disease, one other person succumbed to it on Thursday evening putting the total number of those dead at 49.

According to health officials at the ministry, the 190 infected people are in good shape but a massive vaccination exercise has to be done. The epidemic, only confirmed two weeks ago in Abim, if not contained, can kill in 14 days.

In Kitgum, for example, 17 people who were in isolation were on Wednesday discharged but monitoring continues.

The chairperson of the National Taskforce Kitgum, Mr John Komakech, said the situation is under control although the ministry is yet to communicate to them about the national vaccination exercise. According to Mr Komakech, the many outbreaks like hepatitis E and Cholera that hit northern Uganda are partly due to poor hygiene and he said the ministry should put more emphasis on hygiene.

The Ministry of Health said yesterday in a press statement that the epidemic has remained confined in the 10 northern Uganda districts and has not spread elsewhere.

An official from the Uganda Virus Research Institute, formally the Yellow fever Research Institute, explained that after four days when the mosquito bites, a person gets a high fever then the fever slows down for a day or two and returns with abdominal pain, vomiting and passing out urine which sometimes contains blood.

The disease last hit Uganda in 1972 of which not much has been documented.

Yellow fever is a viral hemorrhagic disease that is transmitted by the bite of the female Aedes aegypti--a kind of mosquito that is only active during the daytime.