Uganda is sending health ‘soldiers’ to Liberia

Liberia was yesterday looking forward to receiving the best available technology against Ebola from America and more experienced personnel from Uganda.

It was announced that the United States had agreed to send doses of the experimental Ebola drug to Liberia to treat infected health workers.  The treatment was directly requested by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf last week.

The drug, known as ZMapp, has  been administered to two Americans already, and will be delivered by a US government representative this week, with the World Health Organization expected to send additional doses.

Officially, some 1,113 people have died and 1,800 have contracted Ebola, a deadly haemorrhagic fever, in West Africa. The worst-ever Ebola outbreak is centred on Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, but has spread to other countries in recent months.

Ugandan ‘soldier’

As America sends the best of its technology, Uganda has been putting some of her best anti-Ebola experts at the disposal of West Africa. A third team of health workers is today set to fly to Liberia, led by Dr Joa Okech-Ojony, a public health specialist and epidemiologist, who helped fight Uganda’s Ebola outbreak of 2007

Speaking by telephone last evening, Dr Okech-Ojony, a member of the national Ebola taskforce since 2001, described himself as a soldier ready to do battle in Liberia.

“My specific assignment is community coordination,” said the former Kabarole district director of health services, whose father fought in the second World War. “We will have to make sure that we interrupt the chain of infection using our experience and past methods. Cutting the chain of infection is very important.”

Okech-Ojony, now retired, is the prime minister of the Tieng Adhola, the cultural institution of the Jopadhola. He admitted that some relatives of his were sceptical about him facing such a dangerous enemy, but he had reassured them that God would protect him.

“I am an askari and a soldier is a soldier. As long as you know that the enemy is lurking in the bushes, there is nothing like a surprise ambush,” he said.

The Ugandan team – with about 20 health workers – is said to have been supplied with exceptionally strong antiseptics from the United States. These, it is hoped, will help ensure that those aiming to defend West Africa against Ebola do not themselves succumb to the enemy.

Drug controversy

Two Americans, Dr Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, who contracted Ebola in Liberia, are reportedly improving after being treated with ZMapp. This is the first time the drug is being tried on humans after having modest results in monkeys. About three other Ebola drugs, including TKM-Ebola, are being developed in the US and the first vaccine clinical trials involving humans are scheduled for December.

Meanwhile, ethical questions about who gets first access to the unproven new therapies for the deadly disease are being raised. Is it for the minority against the majority?

“We’ve got to let the science guide us on whether to make the experimental drug more widely available. I don’t think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful,” President Barack Obama said on August 6 during a news conference at the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington.

A World Health Organization (WHO) panel convened Monday to discuss the ethics of using experimental medicine and deliberations are still ongoing.

Difficult

Saudi Arabia has joined the list of countries with suspected Ebola cases, after one of its citizens died at a specialised hospital in Jeddah. Saudi Arabia has since banned all passenger flights from Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone. It is the second country to pronounce this ban after Ivory Coast.

But according on expert, the worst is yet to come.

“It is most likely that we are going to enter the third wave of the disease which is even deadlier because we missed out on the first opportunity,” said Dr Misaki Wayengera, Uganda’s principal investigator of the Ebola rapid diagnostic test kit.

“The response mechanism in West Africa was poor and therefore those with the disease continued to spread it. Now it is suspected in Saudi Arabia.”

He said suspected Ebola cases should be quickly isolated and put on supportive treatment which was not the case in West Africa.