The Ministry of Health has revealed that it will commence trials of three vaccines developed to combat Ebola Sudan virus which has since September killed 43 people out of 153 infections recorded in the country.
Margaret Muhanga, the State Minister for Health (Primary Health Care) revealed the plan while briefing the House on the progress and the containment measures against the Ebola virus during a plenary chaired by Speaker Anita Among on Wednesday.
She said the Ministry plans to vaccinate 3,000 contacts of 150 confirmed cases in two weeks’ time using the three vaccines from the United Kingdom, Sabin and Merck from USA so as to evaluate their efficacy, adding that there is no known treatment for Sudan Ebola-virus.
But John Baptist Nambeshe, the Manjiya County Member of Parliament in Bududa district who doubles as the Chief Whip of the opposition in Parliament expressed fear that the vaccine trials are likely to be conducted without the consent of the people, thus violating their rights.
However, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng responded and clarified that the reason why today there is an Ebola vaccine for the Ebola-Zaire was because such trials were conducted in West Africa to protect the population and emphasized the trials in Uganda will only be done with the consent.
Dr. Aceng and Muhanga told the House that the Ebola response team has met with resistance from communities in Mubende and Kassanda, hot spot areas of the outbreak due to myths and what she termed as ‘politicizing the epidemic’.
They blamed the area leaders including legislators for weak leadership and confusing the public that there is no Ebola epidemic in this country, labeling the epidemic as merely a propaganda by the Government to mobilize resources.
This irked the Speaker Anita Among who asked Muhanga to name the members who made the statements. Muhanga tabled a document that included quotes by Rubaga North Member of Parliament Abubaker Kawalya during a talk show on CBS radio.
Kassanda North Member of Parliament, Patrick Oshabe Nsamba criticized the government for distributing the same amount of funds and food to non-quarantine districts instead of focusing resources to districts with the high epidemic burden.
But Prime Minister, Robinah Nabbanja responded that her office was guided by a technical assessment team in determining food distribution.URN
