Chris Blattman

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Strange disease in northern Uganda

As regular readers know, Chris has worked in northern Uganda for many years on post-conflict issues. I (and others) have been involved with one of those projects, evaluating a program to encourage female entrepreneurs. My trip last year to Gulu, Kitgum, Pader and more was fantastic, and I’m looking forward to going back in January. We’re just now in the middle of the midline survey, which should let us know how everything has gone so far.

Unfortunately progress has slowed, albeit for an excellent reason: there is a yet-to-be-identified disease spreading through the area, with a high (>50%) fatality rate. News reports are hard to come by (surprise! can you imagine if this were happening in, say, South Dakota?), but I did find this short report online. I have also seen the minutes of a local community meeting held yesterday in Kitgum, and naturally everyone is fairly anxious. Health workers are scared (as I would be!), since they have no real protection, and of course there are no ambulances or well-equipped hospitals in the region. *Very* preliminary diagnosis seems to be amoebic dysentery, but no one is at all sure.

My best wishes are with our field teams and everyone else in the area: stay safe!

10 Responses

  1. I also heard pneumonic plague – have a friend going as an epi for medical org next week.

  2. Hy Chris, this is Fabio from AVSI (WINGS project!)
    Situation up here is strange, no one is sure how it will evolve, we’ll keep on monitoring.
    Greetings from Kitgum and see you in January.

    Fabio

  3. Bad news for Northern Uganda this time round! I have a strong feeling that MOH will handle this situation and they have the capacity. But please improve on the awareness campaign, we need to know more about this evil in our mother land.
    Please medics do your best coz you have done it before

  4. @Brett – it’s my understanding that the results have not yet come back. Due to symptoms (i.e. bleeding from eyes, nose, etc.) people here are assuming it is Ebola.

  5. A case fatality rate of >50% seems really high — however those are typically overestimated in the early stages of an epidemic because an initial observation will only catch the worst cases (and a higher proportion of those will die). I read in another report that the CDC had collected samples to test for viral fevers like Ebola, so I assume the fact that we haven’t heard anything means it’s not that. Beyond that, frustrating that one can’t get any more news on the subject.

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