US officials advise travelers to be careful in Uganda because of Ebola

U.S. health officials on Wednesday urged Americans traveling to Uganda to take precautions because of an Ebola outbreak—and said they are helping Ugandan health officials respond to the threat.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention travel alert does not call on travelers to steer clear of Uganda, but it does urge enhanced precautions, such as avoiding people with symptoms and skipping visits to health care centers unless travelers have an urgent medical need.

Ugandan health officials last week reported that a nurse at a hospital in the capital, Kampala, died of Ebola. It was the first recorded fatality since the country’s last outbreak of the disease ended in early 2023.

World Health Organization officials this week noted the “extensive travel” of the infected person, who visited a number of medical facilities while symptomatic, “increasing the risk of widespread transmission.”

The CDC has worked in Uganda for decades, helping the country build up lab testing capabilities to detect threatening germs. The agency established an office in the east African nation 25 years ago and has 114 people there right now. The U.S. agency has offered to help Uganda’s health ministry with such tasks as contact tracing and infection control.

Working to stop overseas outbreaks before they reach America’s shores was complicated by an order last week that told CDC officials to stop working with the WHO.

On Wednesday, an agency spokesperson said CDC personnel have been cleared to speak one-on-one with their WHO counterparts related to response activities in Uganda and two other countries with different disease outbreaks—Tanzania and Congo.

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