Ebola Epidemic Mystifies WHO Experts
By Chris Tomlinson
The Associated Press
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Reuters
Staff at Gulu hospital in Uganda spraying the corridors with disinfectant Wednesday.
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GULU, Uganda - International experts on Thursday began training Ugandan health workers on how to treat victims of the swift and deadly Ebola virus that has so far killed 41 people. At a government hospital at ground zero of Uganda's first known outbreak of the virus, Simon Mardel of the World Health Organization brought new protective gear for medical workers. In the early days of the outbreak, a doctor and two nurses died after treating the first patients. The smell of disinfectant waft ed across the grounds of Gulu Hospital as nurses dressed in surgical gear and heavy black rubber boots moved in and out of the Ebola ward. Anyone leaving the building was sprayed with bleach to kill the virus on their clothing. "Our priority right now is barrier nursing, getting the hospital safe," said Dr. Michael Ryan, a WHO medical officer who arrived with Mardel and two other WHO experts Wednesday. Teams from the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and French-based Doctors without Borders arrived in Uganda on Thursday with the sophisticated equipment needed to confirm the suspected Ebola cases and other supplies. The CDC teams were to fly out in the afternoon to Gulu, a town of 150,000 about 360 kilometers north of the capital Kampala. Gulu Hospital, a sprawling complex of beige concrete buildings with rusting tin roofs, has been treating 45 people suspected of having Ebola. A total of 111 cases were so far reported, including the 41 deaths. At the hospital, Mardel lectured doctors and nurses and showed them videos on treating victims of the virus, for which there is no known cure. Ebola is spread through bodily contact with a victim who has developed symptoms of the disease or has died from it. Ebola usually kills its victims faster than it can spread, burning out before it can reach too far. About four days after contracting the virus, the victim develops a headache, fever and chest pains. In the later stages, the virus begins to attack internal organs, causing bloody diarrhea and vomiting. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of Ebola victims die of the disease within two weeks of infection. The first Ebola victim in the Uganda outbreak is believed to have died on Sept. 17 in Kabede Opong, a village five kilometers outside Gulu. Esther Awete was found dead in her mud hut by her mother and sisters. In keeping with custom, her body was kept in her hut for two days to allow friends and family to take part in the funeral. Awete's family and closest friends ritually bathed her body, buried her less than 10 meters from where she died and then washed their hands in a communal basin as a sign of unity. Now, her mother, three sisters and three other relatives are dead and the virus has spread across a 24-kilometer radius. Researchers do not know what causes Ebola outbreaks, which are often years and hundreds of kilometers apart. The virus is believed to be carried by animals and insects, which live with the virus. Ebola then makes the jump into an initial victim, who then spreads the disease in a community. Awete, 36, lived with her mother and sisters in a small compound of six thatched huts and a dilapidated house surrounded by banana trees and rows of corn. She made her living selling home-brewed cassava beer and corn she ground by hand inside her 4-meterwide windowless hut. People here do not eat wild animals, suspected as the source of some past Ebola outbreaks, and Awete did nothing unusual before she died, except for a trip to another village to get cassava leaves for brewing. At first, neighbors thought Awete died of dysentery, cholera or any of a number of illnesses common to East African villages. The outbreak in Gulu is the first time the disease has been found in Uganda.
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