Joshua Nahamya
06 February 2025
Mbarara City – Dr. Deus Twesigye has confirmed that there is no Ebola outbreak so far reported at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital [MRRH] as alleged by the public.
According to Twesigye, there were some social media reports trending that Mbarara Regional referral hospital is a no-go zone area with some hemorrhagic viral fever.
“We are happy that these cases never came out to be haemorrhagic viral fevers but the truth is we have these cases in the country and we even lost one of our own a staff at Mulago hospital,” he said
While clearing the ongoing rumors on Thursday, Dr. Twesigye confirmed that the regional facility had not admitted any suspected Ebola patients as earlier reported.
According to Dr. Twesigye, they received two patients this week presenting bloody diarrhea symptoms, and upon testing samples at the Uganda Virus Research Institute, results tested negative.
“Last weekend we admitted two patients a male Burundian from Nakivale refugee camp who had blood diarrhoea, and a girl from Kiruhura who presented with fever, headache and general body weakness. Unfortunately, towards Monday morning the 15 year old boy died despite the aggressive resuscitation and team work of health workers who tried to bring back his life to normal,” he noted
“We were so lucky that we had already sent the samples. Fortunately, when the results came on Tuesday, they were negative for Ebola and the girl was discharged yesterday” So I declare that no Ebola case in Mbarara regional hospital,” Twesigye noted
He added that the physician confirmed that the girl had severe enteritis. “We got scared and still treated the two patients as highly suspicious cases, and we are following the standard operation procedures to manage such patients,” Twesigye said
Deus Twesigye, Hospital Director
Signs and symptoms
According to Dr Twesigye, an Ebola patient experiences extensive muscle pain, general body weakness, headache, chest pain, and bleeding through the nose, ears, and other orifices.
“It is from at this point that most of us suspect that what we are dealing with is a haemorrhagic viral fever,” he said
Dr. Twesigye says that they are aware of the Ebola outbreak in the country and they have set different mechanisms which include regular hand washing and reduction of caretakers in the hospital to minimize the chances of Ebola spreading in case the outbreak is reported in the hospital.
“We are now encouraging hand washing facilities to ensure that people wash their hands before accessing the health facility,” he noted
He added “We have an enabling technical team on the ground of epidemiologists and consultants in public health. And we have a trained team in an isolation center and even back up in the districts to create awareness to the people in regard to the symptoms of Ebola”.
“We want to make sure that this information trickles down to the last person in the village such that people get to know that Ebola is around and it kills,” he said
Dr. Twesigye said that the hospital officials have reduced the number of caretakers from three to one in order to reduce the chances of Ebola spreading until the situation normalizes.
“In Ankole even if a person is an outpatient, they are likely to come with three or four attendants but because of this scenario, we are now limiting a patient to one individual. This is a problem but we cannot wait to be caught unaware” We cannot sit and wait for the disease to escalate the entire region when we are looking” he said
“We are going to be very strict in a sense that even if your friends come, we shall have identified to be the principal caretaker such that we can reduce the congestion in the hospital,” he added.
Meanwhile, Mbarara hospital has so far received a total of 88 Mpox fever cases out of which 70 patients have been treated so far.
“Tentatively we have admitted 88 cases of monkey pox in our isolation centre for the last three months but we are lucky that we haven’t lost. Out of 88 cumulative suspected cases, no one has died, actually 70 of them have improved and gone back to their respective homes and today we only have 18 patients admitted” Halson Kagure, the hospital’s public relations noted
Unfortunately, Kagure reported that the cases are not reducing. “It is stagnant we don’t see it going down, almost every day we have between 18 and 20 patients admitted”
He added that most patients were picked from the Katete ward in Mbarara City, Isingiro, and Kashmir. “Around 70% of the cases we get them from Mbarara City here whereby Katete ward is dominating. And we have isolated other cases from Kashari and Isingiro district more especially Nakivale and Oruchinga refugee settlement camps,” he said
Kagure appealed to the public to be on alert and report such cases for easy management and treatment. “All our lower health facilities have all it takes to manage infectious diseases so we encourage the public to report such suspected cases for easy management” When a person comes back with a discharge form don’t stigmatize them because it is an indication that they have healed and can no longer infect other people in the surroundings,” he said
The PRO also appealed to well-wishers and the ministry to provide the facility with food and other essentials to take care of the patients.
“Occasionally we pick these people from transit to our isolation centre and in such scenario you find that we are constrained to have food, soap, and other essentials to take care of these patients,” Kagure noted
