Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has suspended witch doctors and traditional healers’ activities ‘indefinitely.’
In a televised speech to Ugandan citizens on Wednesday, Museveni asked the traditional healers to stop treating sick people so as to curb the spread of Ebola that recently hit the country.
“Witchdoctors, traditionalists, and herbalists should not accept sick people now. Suspend what you are doing. There is no witchcraft here. Ebola is a disease. The communities in the affected areas should know Ebola is deadly and spread through contact with the affected person,” he said.
Aside from that, he asked the police to arrest those suspected to have contracted the virus but have refused to go into isolation.
Ebola first broke out in Mubende District on September 20 and since then, 54 cases of the virus have been recorded with 19 people confirmed to have succumbed to the virus.
The disease has been reported in four other areas in the country aside from Mubende.
Museveni’s directive follows a regional ministerial meeting that was held in Kampala, aimed at finding emergency response to the outbreak of the disease.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that in a matter of weeks, clinical trials on drugs for treating the Ebola trait spreading in Uganda could start.
“Unfortunately, the Ebola vaccines that have been so effective in controlling recent outbreaks in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) are not effective against the type of ebola virus which is responsible for the current outbreak in Uganda.
“Several vaccines are in various stages of development against this virus, two of which could begin clinical trials in Uganda in the coming weeks, pending regulatory and ethics approvals from the Ugandan government,” Tedros said in the meeting.
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