Should You Reconsider Your Trip To Uganda Due Ebola?

The news in the world spreads like a plague without any reference to patient zero. The same applies to Ebola news; most of the stories reported are not picked directly from the places being reported on. Rather, once a trusted media house publishes a story, other media houses usually just pick the headlines and disseminate them without fact-checking the details.

It is a common narrative that there has been an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, which is technically beyond false information.

Words mean nothing but people mean things when they use the words.

When you mention the word outbreak, what comes to the general public’s mind is disease infections that are out of control and any people in a certain location could potentially get infected because of the roaming disease. However this is not the case with Uganda. Technically using the outbreak term could be justified by the scientists but very wrong because the purpose of language is to convey a message to another person.

WHO Director General

If the message you convey does not match the facts you intend to communicate regardless of fitting the scientific term, you simply create confusion, misinformation and diversion. Here is what you need to know about Ebola in Uganda as of 23rd June 2023.

Uganda has not had any community transmission case of Ebola since 18th May 2026. All the cases have been in regard to imported patients undergoing health care. To put it in perspective, it is like the United states setting up a Quarantine center in Kenya and then some of the people who have been quarantined in Kenya are reported to be patients. Then those patients infect some of the care givers and the news comes out to declare there is an Ebola out break in Kenya.

That is what has happened in Uganda. According to world health organisation, there has not been a single Ebola case in Uganda that didn’t come from the Quarantined people. There has not been any infected person that was not under quarantine, thus no single general public Ebola transmission. If someone has to revise their plans of visiting Uganda because of the so called Ebola outbreak, it is likely because of misinformation and a reporting that is not concerned about communicating with an intent of understanding.

Gulu Northern Uganda

The ministry of health responded rigorously to ensure that with the cancellation of events, SOPs, travel bans and several other measures because by then there was no clear message on whether there could have been someone in the general public that had been infected unknowingly. It should be noted that it takes 21 days for the virus to fully incubate. Without any new cases from the general public for the last one month should create a better view on what the state of Ebola in Uganda is.

However, it should be noted that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is real. Uganda is a neighbor to the DRC but so is Rwanda. Given the fact that the borders are closed at the moment, flights banned, the chances of infected people transferring from Congo to Uganda are minimum.

Aramaga Lodge

Uganda has also deployed medical workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo to help out with curbing the disease from the source. The earlier the disease is curbed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the earlier everyone gets safe. Unfortunately, due to the same misinformation, KLM stopped its flights to Uganda which is ridiculous given the size of the airline.

With such misinformation, it shows why the Kenyan public had to riot against the USA setting up an Ebola Quarantine center in Kenya.

Based on the current situation, there is technically no single reason you should cancel your self drive trip to Uganda. Unless the situation changes and community transmission similar to what is happening in Congo happens in Uganda, the country is open for travel. Business is moving on normally. The only outbreak Uganda is currently dealing with is an outbreak of misinformation related to Ebola.