Ebola outbreak contained in major African country

The African nation of Uganda “has contained an Ebola outbreak imported from Congo after all identified contacts completed quarantine without further transmission,” notes The Doomslayer.

Uganda is one of the world’s 30 poorest countries, with its people known for eating lots of bananas. Ugandans eat two pounds of bananas per person every day, making them the biggest banana eaters on Earth. Uganda produces more bananas than any country except India. India has 1.5 billion people, while 53 million people live in Uganda.

The Associated Press reports:

Authorities in Uganda declared the East Africa nation free of Ebola on Tuesday following the discharge of the country’s last patient in mid-June, a delicate milestone as the virus continues to plague neighboring Congo.

Uganda has maintained since the outset that its cases were linked to the larger outbreak in eastern Congo’s remote province of Ituri, which borders Uganda. The first cases in Uganda were Congolese who crossed the border to seek treatment for an unknown illness before it was known they had Ebola, health authorities have said.

After what health officials believe was weeks of transmission, Congo announced its outbreak on May 15, the same day that Uganda confirmed two Ebola cases — including a man who had already died.

While a total of 20 cases were reported in Uganda, health authorities say there is currently no indication of further spread within the country.

The last patient was released June 16, and Ugandan authorities have waited the World Health Organization-recommended 42 days – or two incubation cycles for Ebola – to declare the country free of the disease.

Uganda often has difficulty enforcing safety rules. Last month, a school bus crash killed 20 people in Uganda, leading to cancellation of many school trips.

16 people have died of starvation in Uganda’s impoverished northeast due to drought. But Uganda’s central coffee-growing region is defying drought thanks to improving agricultural techniques. Uganda is one of Africa’s biggest coffee exporters.

Kenyan farmers are using artificial intelligence tools to produce much more food.

The impoverished African nation of Zambia has used artificial intelligence to find new mineral wealth.

In other good news. Niger recently became the first nation in Africa to eliminate river blindness, a disease spread by flies that breed near rivers. Those flies carry long thin parasitic worms that burrow in a victim’s skin. And the African nation of Guinea recently eradicated sleeping sickness, a parasitic disease carried by the tsetse fly that causes irreversible brain damage, aggressiveness, psychosis, and then death, if left untreated.