Why the Ebola outbreak in Uganda matters to you

If there's one thing we've learned from COVID-19 and monkeypox, health experts say, it's that viruses are world travellers — and disease outbreaks are developing at a fast and furious pace.   

Now, as Uganda fights an Ebola outbreak, doctors are urging rich countries like Canada to pay attention.   

"We know from past outbreaks that preparedness is key and that a disease can spread anywhere rapidly," Dr. Patrick Otim, who is leading the World Health Organization's (WHO) Ebola response in Uganda, told CBC News in an email. 

"Global solidarity when it comes to sharing resources, supplies and expertise can be the difference between a localized public health threat and a global one."

Authorities declared an outbreak of Ebola virus on Sept. 20. The disease is devastating, with death rates ranging between 25 to 90 per cent in past outbreaks in Africa. Although the root of this specific outbreak hasn't yet been confirmed, Ebola is often thought to originate in fruit bats and then infects other wild animals. 

Humans initially become infected through contact with animals — including when hunting for bushmeat. Then, it spreads between humans through direct contact with bodily fluids, including blood, vomit, feces, saliva or semen. Without proper personal protective equipment, people can become infected while caring for an Ebola patient, handling their bedsheets or burying the body of someone who has died from the virus.

Right now, there are dozens of confirmed cases across Uganda, and the disease has killed at least four health-care workers, according to the WHO. Health authorities are not only trying to save patients' lives, they're also trying to prevent the virus from spreading to neighbouring African countries. Both are tough feats, given there is not yet a licensed vaccine for this particular kind of Ebola — known as the Sudan strain — nor a drug treatment beyond keeping patients hydrated and managing symptoms. 

There's reason for hope though. 

Ugandan and international scientists are planning to test a vaccine candidate, developed by the Sabin Vaccine Institute and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the U.S., that has shown promise against the Sudan strain in early-stage trials, said Dr. Yonas Tegegn Woldemariam, WHO representative to Uganda, in a media briefing Thursday. The hope is that it will be as successful as the Ervebo vaccine has been against the type of Ebola known as the Zaire strain, which drove many previous outbreaks. 

Battling Ebola requires a lot of resources — from personal protective equipment to test kits to expertise — so it's critical that more prosperous countries support Uganda's medical response now to save lives and money, said Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, an infectious diseases specialist at Emory University in Atlanta.

"You need to make the investment early on to squash an outbreak and not wait for it to affect the U.S. or have a case imported into Europe to then raise the level of alarm," she said. 

Taking a global approach to health care and providing necessary medical and humanitarian assistance quickly is the best way for Canadians to defend against Ebola and other disease outbreaks, agreed Dr. Joanne Liu, a professor at the School of Population and Global Health at McGill University and former international president of Doctors Without Borders. 

"If you want to beat an outbreak and avoid an outbreak … [moving] to an epidemic to a pandemic, your response needs to move faster than the virus," Liu said. "So we cannot wait." 

Thousands of people died in a widespread West African outbreak of the Zaire Ebola strain between 2014 and 2016, but there was no sense of urgency from rich countries until it hit close to home, Titanji said.