Government and world Health Organisation (WHO), have confirmed that a 22- year old lady who recently died in Democratic republic of Congo (DRC) did not travel to Uganda before she died of Ebola.
The Ministry of Health and WHO in Uganda were alerted of the woman who was thought to have a history of travelling to Uganda from DRC and who later died in DRC and was confirmed EVD positive.
According to a joint statement released by WHO and Ministry of Health, their surveillance teams began investigating and ascertaining the various locations where this Lady visited and possible contacts arising from her business movements in Uganda.
“In the process of investigation and contact tracing our teams interacted with various people who were knowledgeable about the deceased lady movements. Various rumors and unverified information were gathered by our Surveillance and contact tracing Teams, among which was allegation that the deceased Lady travelled to Goma and Gisenyi,” reads part of the statement.
The surveillance team has since revisited this information and at this point cannot confirm or verify that the said Lady travelled to Gisenyi, as alleged.
“We therefore regret and retract information that appeared in our Situation Report (Sitrep), which caused an impression of confirmed travel by the deceased lady to Gisenyi in Rwanda, which information was from community informants and is not verifiable at this moment.” They apologized
The statement says surveillance teams receive information on a daily basis in regard to movements of suspects, alert and confirmed cases from colleagues in DRC, and endeavor to investigate all received information (rumors and unverified) as is the practice and standard by WHO for ensuring highly sensitive surveillance systems. Let’s in this spirit that the unverified information of movement to Gisenyi and Goma was included in our Sitrep.
“Following information sharing with investigation teams in DRC through WHO, we now believe the deceased lady did not travel to Gisenyi or Goma as earlier on suggested,” the statement says.
