Ebola: Health ministry, epidemic experts meet

Local and international health partners, among them epidemic experts, are scheduled to meet with officials from the Ministry of Health today to forge ways of preventing the deadly Ebola virus from spreading over to Rwanda from neighbouring countries. Innes Mpambara, the Communications Director in the Ministry of Health, said officials will hold talks with the State Minister for HIV/Aids and Infectious Diseases, Dr Innocent Nyaruhirira. “Dr Nyaruhirira is scheduled to meet with local and international partners to update them on the current situation of Ebola and to also request them to cooperate in stopping the virus from crossing over to Rwanda,” Mpambara said. The deadly haemorrhagic fever has broken out and killed people in some parts of neighbouring Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Meanwhile, the Clinical Managing Director of TracPlus, a centre of disease and epidemic control, Prof. Michael Kramer said that screening of travellers had started at all border posts and that all people coming into the country are being diagnosed before entering the country. Rwanda has installed isolation facilities at all medical centres close to the border posts and whoever will be suspected to be carrying the virus will be put in those isolation cubicles, Kramer said.He added that the government is currently training medical doctors on handling Ebola cases and preventing it from spreading. Rwanda issued a red-light alert after the first outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in April this year; since then, hundreds have died of the deadly haemorrhagic fever in both DRC and Uganda. The disease has hit two districts, Bundibugyo and Mbarara, in the neighbouring country Uganda in the last month. Ends

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Ebola: Health ministry, epidemic experts meet