Masaka Taskforce demands on-site Ebola testing kits

By Elizabeth Ankunda

4^th Nov 2022

Members of the Masaka City Ebola Taskforce have asked the Ministry of Health to establish testing equipment in the area to ease response activities against the spread of Ebola.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health confirmed the first Ebola death in Masaka of a female patient who was first admitted at the Masaka Regional Referral Hospital before being evacuated to the national treatment center in Entebbe.

The patient had a spiral of contacts in community and health facilities; from which two more people have also tested positive for the Ebola Virus.

Speaking during a meeting on Friday with the District Ebola Taskforce Doctor Abed Bwanika, the Member of Parliament for Kimanyia-Kabonera City Division says that the Ministry of Health should deploy mobile laboratory equipment to provide rapid testing services on the suspected cases, for effective coordination and timely response.

He demands that testing and results processing be instantly conducted on-site, to eliminate the unwanted long time lag when the health workers wait for samples transported to laboratories in either Kampala or Entebbe.

According to Bwanika, the current arrangement of waiting for long hours for results from Kampala increases the exposure risk of many people to the virus, which may contribute to community transmissions of the disease.

Dr. Patrick Kasendwa, the Masaka City Medical Officer who coordinates the local Ebola response team also prefers that besides providing enough Personal Protective Equipment-PPE for their frontline staff, the Ministry needs to support them to provide a response to all alerts from communities.

He says that their teams are currently developing a comprehensive work plan detailing all the requirements and budget which they will soon forward to the Ministry of Health for consideration.

But Dr. Daniel Kadonera, a Senior Epidemiologist at the Ministry of Health who is part of the Ebola National Response team revealed that apparently, the Ministry has only two mobile testing laboratories that are not deployed in areas where they are most needed.

According to Kadonera, the situation in Masaka doesn’t warrant deploying a mobile laboratory, saying the Ministry has established an effective network through which the samples and results can be delivered in a space of six hours.