Loose border foils Ebola fight
MPONDWE, Uganda — Several well-trodden paths crisscross this lush area where people walk between Congo and Uganda to visit nearby family and friends and go to the busy markets.
The problem is that the pedestrians may unknowingly be carrying the deadly Ebola virus, and hindering efforts to control the current outbreak in eastern Congo, which has killed more than 1,400 people.
The busy border post is open 12 hours a day from 7 a.m., but after dark people walk along the or “mouse paths,” as the narrow dirt trails are known in the local Kiswahili language.
The footpaths show close kinship between the the two countries, where most people have relatives on both sides of the border. But as Ebola rages they are a source of worry for health workers and local authorities trying to prevent any further cross-border contamination. Eastern Congo has battled the Ebola outbreak since last August and last week the disease spread to Uganda, where two people died of the hemorrhagic fever.
“This border is very porous,” said James Mwanga, a Ugandan police officer in charge of the Mpondwe border post. “You will not know who has passed if the person went through the unofficial border posts, in most cases. Now there is anxiety and so on. We have heightened our alertness.”
The Ebola deaths in Uganda happened after a family of Congolese-Ugandans traveled to Congo to care for a family elder suffering from the disease.
Authorities believe members of that family, including a 5-year-old boy and his 50-year-old grandmother who have since died of Ebola, took a footpath back into Uganda. In doing so, they may have exposed many Ugandans to the viral disease.
The current outbreak in eastern Congo has become the second worst, after the West Africa epidemic of 2014-2016 in which more than 11,000 people died.
The virus can spread quickly via close contact with bodily fluids of those infected and can be fatal in up to 90% of cases.
Despite new anti-Ebola vaccines, non-biological factors have made the outbreak difficult to control.
Eastern Congo is one of the world’s most turbulent regions, and rebels have attacked medical centers. Community resistance based in fear and mistrust has also hurt Ebola response work.
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The outbreak is an “extraordinary event” of deep concern but does not yet merit being declared a global emergency, a World Health Organization expert committee said last week.
Declaring an emergency could have “unintended consequences,” such as airlines stopping flights or governments closing borders, Preben Aavitsland, the acting chair of the committee, told reporters.
Despite the obvious risks of further cross-border contamination, Ugandan health officials insist they are prepared to prevent the disease from spreading. They urge vigilance and advise people to avoid hugging and even handshakes. At multiple border crossings travelers must wash their hands in chlorinated water and have their temperature taken before they can proceed.
Uganda has faced several Ebola outbreaks in recent years and has succeeded in bringing them under control, although the area in western Uganda where last week’s deaths occurred has never experienced an outbreak. The country’s first outbreak, in 2000, infected 425 Ugandans and killed more than half of them in the country’s north. Another outbreak in 2007 killed 37 people in Bundibugyo, a remote district close to the Congo border.
“I cannot find a relative in Uganda who is willing to let me stay with them,” said Morian Kabugho, who lives in the Congolese village of Kasindipolo and crosses into Uganda to sell eggs in the busy market.
She complained of the health officials in Congo. “I am not happy with my government. The nurses are lazy. When you go to the nearest health center, they will tell you to go far away in Beni,” Kabugho said.
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