Kenya, Tanzania on High Alert as Illegal Border Crossings Bring Ebola to Uganda

Kenya identified a potential Ebola patient on Monday and Tanzania announced heightened security measures this weekend amid a growing Ebola outbreak that spilled over into Uganda from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) last week, the second-worst outbreak of the virus on record.

The director general of World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, landed in Uganda on Monday to evaluate the situation after the nation documented its first two Ebola deaths, a five-year-old boy and a woman believed to be his grandmother. The boy, his younger sibling, his grandmother, and several other relatives crossed the border into DRC from Uganda to attend the funeral of his grandfather, a confirmed Ebola victim. A third person has died of the virus since the government announced the first two cases.

The Ugandan Ministry of Health confirmed Ghebreyesus’s visit on Monday. In a statement, spokesman Emmanuel Ainebyoona said that the WHO chief had “come to assess the readiness of the teams on the ground.”

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