The UN requests funding to help contain the Ebola outbreak in Uganda

After U.S. cuts to foreign aid put pressure on Uganda’s health budget, the UN has issued an emergency plea to raise $11.2 million to help pay the country’s response to an Ebola outbreak that has killed two people.

The death of a male nurse at the only national referral hospital in East Africa prompted Uganda to announce an epidemic of the highly contagious and frequently lethal hemorrhagic sickness in January in the capital Kampala.

According to the World Health Organization, which cited the nation’s health ministry, a second Ebola patient, a four-year-old child, passed away last week.

Ten confirmed cases in Uganda have been connected to the Sudan form of Ebola, for which there is currently no licensed vaccine.

The U.N. said in a statement released on Tuesday that the money would be used to support the Ebola response in seven high-risk regions from March to May.

According to Kasonde Mwinga, Uganda’s representative for the World Health Organization (WHO), a U.N. body, “the goal is to rapidly contain the outbreak and address its impact on public health as well as associated social-economic life of affected people.”

The United States has historically provided a large portion of Uganda’s funding for the health sector.

According to a U.S. Embassy report, the United States contributed $34 million to support case management, surveillance, diagnostics, laboratories, infection prevention, and control during the most recent Ebola outbreak in 2022–2023.

According to government officials, Uganda’s public health budget has been negatively impacted by the U.S. government’s decision to cut funds to the country’s health sector and impose an aid freeze under President Donald Trump’s administration.

A request for comment was not immediately answered by Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the spokesperson for Uganda’s Health Ministry.

Following a visit to Uganda, Dr. Janet Diaz of the World Health Emergencies program told a Geneva press briefing that the agency was already being forced to temporarily assume parts of the Ebola response that had previously been handled by other organizations because of U.S. budget restrictions. These include processing biological samples and stationing surveillance teams at border crossings.

Fever, headaches, and muscle aches are all signs of Ebola. Contact with bodily fluids and tissue that are infected is how the virus is spread.