The South Sudanese government said on Tuesday it was stepping up vigilance along its borders following the outbreak of a Sudanese strain of Ebola in neighboring Uganda.
Victoria Anib Majur, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, advised communities living along the border with Uganda or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to report suspected cases of Ebola to health authorities.
“We are very concerned regarding the outbreak of Ebola in Uganda because we share a common border. We have a lot of traffic at the border, our families are in Uganda and Ugandans are on our side (of the border),” said Ms. Majur to journalists in Juba, capital of South Sudan.
She also called on people to refrain from consuming bushmeat as Ebola spreads to humans through animals.
Majur said national assessment teams would be deployed to the Yambio and Nimule areas bordering DRC and Uganda respectively.
On August 21, the DRC government announced that it had registered an outbreak of Ebola, following the diagnosis of a 46-year-old woman living in the town of Beni in North Kivu province.
Ms. Majur announced that her country would work in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to promote public awareness of the Ebola virus.
<!–enpproperty 784303242022-09-21 03:20:24:482
