Kampala, Uganda

Amid a rise in cases after the Ebola outbreak in Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni imposed a lockdown on two districts on Saturday. Restrictions have been imposed on personal travel, a night curfew has been ordered in the districts, which are at the epicentre of the outbreak. The authorities have also closed public places. 

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Now, the news agency Reuters has reported citing government sources that the United States sent Gilead Sciences' remdesivir and Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc's experimental Ebola antibody drug MBP134 to Uganda last week. 

The aid is aimed at safeguarding the healthcare workers who are currently responding to the outbreak. Authorities have also revealed that around 60 people are infected and at least 44 dead because of the virus. 

Remdesivir is the undisclosed monoclonal antibody that had been given to healthcare workers. The information was disclosed by the health minister of Uganda, Jane Ruth Aceng, at a meeting of African region health officials last week in Kampala. Aceng apparently mentioned the US shipments of the medicines. Remdesivir has been widely used as a (coronavirus) COVID-19 treatment. 

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Joel Montgomery, who is the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s chief of the viral special pathogens branch and incident manager for the outbreak, said that providing treatment that protects the lives of healthcare workers could be central to containing the outbreak. 

Montgomery said, "If healthcare workers start to fall ill and die, it's going to negatively impact the response." He had just returned from a trip to Uganda. 

(With inputs from agencies) 

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Currently, there are no proven vaccines or treatments for the Sudan species of Ebola, one of four known Ebola viruses to cause hemorrhagic fever in humans.

The outbreak confirmed by the Ugandan health ministry on September 20 is the largest of the Sudan species since 2000. 

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