MCC to aid hospital fighting Ebola

Mennonite Central Committee
Wednesday, 20 December 2000

As the death toll from the Ebola virus climbs daily in Uganda, one of the front line fighters of the disease has succumbed to the virus.

In a devastating blow to the staff at Lacor Hospital in northern Uganda, Dr. Matthew Lukwiya, hospital chief of staff, died of the Ebola virus two weeks ago. Dr. Lukwiya, who focused the world's attention on the recent outbreak of Ebola in Uganda, died in the presence of two Ebola patients he had been treating.

Lacor Hospital, which has been leading the fight against Ebola, has not only seen its staff demoralized by Lukwiya's death, but patients who normally come to the hospital for health care are staying away.

"Ebola is not only killing the people, it's killing the only hospital in the region," said Tesfa Dalellew, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Africa program co-director. "Ebola is draining the resources the hospital needs to operate."

With fewer patients the hospital is rapidly losing money, despite funding from the Catholic Church and Ugandan government. The hospital depends on income from patients to cover operating costs.

MCC has pledged $38,500 Can./$25,000 U.S. to keep the hospital running and has organized an emergency airlift of 24,000 pairs of surgical gloves. The gloves will arrive at Lacor by Christmas.

According to recent news reports, 160 people have died from the virus while an additional 400 were infected with virus. Ebola, which causes internal bleeding, kills 30 to 40 percent of the people who contract it. For unknown reasons, the fatality rate among hospital personnel has been much higher, nearly 90 percent.

The staff is able to handle current Ebola cases, which have dropped from a high of 60 to four, but they will face problems if numbers increase, said MCC Uganda country co-representative David Klassen, of Kitchener, Ont.

"Treating Ebola patients is very high stress," Klassen said. "One must be on guard and careful 100 percent of the time with no slip-ups, because one is basically playing with death."

Survivors often become outcasts when they try to return to their villages. Neighbors or family members, terrified of contracting the disease themselves, destroy Ebola victims' clothes and household items.

MCC is sending an additional $5,230 Can./$3,400 U.S. for locally-purchased food, bedding and clothing to Ebola survivors released from the hospital.

MCC volunteers Daniel and Kathryn Smith Derksen, of Palo Alto, Calif., were briefly evacuated from their home in Kitgum, northern Uganda, because of the Ebola crisis earlier in October. They have now returned to the region.

The effects of Ebola have intersected with violence from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group that has terrorized the region for more than a decade. (See related article.) According to an Oct. 17, 2000, report in the Washington Post, before Ebola broke out Lacor Hospital was a safe haven from attacks and kidnappings. The hospital staff referred to the thousands who regularly camped out in the corridors as "night dwellers."

Officials are now worried that some of these night dwellers might have contracted Ebola from infected patients before hospital staff realized the disease was present.

LRA violence has also driven thousands of Ugandans into camps around Gulu. An Ebola outbreak in the camps would have been catastrophic; the diligence of hospital staff and the government's education efforts, however, seem to have prevented an epidemic there.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org