Ebola

I returned to Uganda last Monday having spent five weeks in the UK. During those five weeks the world has finally woken up to the seriousness of the Ebola crisis affecting West Africa and the reality that contagious diseases are not held back by international borders.

Whilst the British media has a tendency to give more attention to the handful of cases in Europe and the USA than it gives to the thousands of cases in Africa this coverage does at least raise people’s level of awareness of the disease. Almost without exception everyone who heard that I am working in Uganda asked if it was safe and you could see that what many were really thinking was ‘am I going to get sick and die from talking to you?’. One person visibly recoiled at the very mention of Africa…

The reality is I am probably as safe from Ebola in Kampala as I was in Carlisle. Although I am slightly closer to the epicentre of the outbreak I am still over 3,000 miles away from the Liberian capital Monrovia.

Entebbe airport has been conducting health checks on all arriving passengers for several months now - something I experienced on Monday evening. As I arrived in the immigration hall a lady wearing a surgical mask and gloves was spraying disinfectant on everyone’s hands. Then we all had to complete a health declaration form. As well as our personal details there were questions about which countries you had visited in the last 21 days (the known incubation period for Ebola), whether you currently had any of the symptoms of the disease (headache, fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, uncontrolled bleeding, etc.) and whether you have had any contact with a person known to have contracted or died of Ebola within the last 21 days. All passengers then had to line up to be seen by a health worker (also wearing surgical mask and gloves) who checked the form and took your temperature before stamping your immigration form and allowing you to proceed to the visa counters.

There was a newly erected room in the corner of the immigration hall marked as the ‘Health Centre’, where presumably passengers were directed if they answered ‘Yes’ to any of the questions on the form or showed signs of a fever.

I am not sure how robust these checks are and although it is not possible to hide a raised body temperature you cannot stop people giving false answers on a form. Despite that I did feel somewhat reassured that the Ugandan authorities are trying hard to stop this outbreak of the disease from entering their country.