Uganda Orders 21-Day Quarantine for Citizens Returning From Congo in Ebola Scare

Uganda will quarantine its own citizens for 21 days when they return home with a history of travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Health Minister Chris Baryomunsi said on Sunday, as the country tightened Ebola precautions while insisting it remains free of the virus.

Baryomunsi announced the step at a press conference in Kampala, Reuters reported. Uganda declared an end to its latest Ebola outbreak in July. The new measures follow two cases in Kenya and Nigeria involving people who had recently passed through Uganda, which borders Congo, where the current outbreak began.

"The ministry has intensified traveller screening at Entebbe International Airport and all land border crossings. All travellers intending to enter Uganda by air, land or water must complete the passenger locator form," Baryomunsi said.

The two cases that forced the move

Kenya's first Ebola patient travelled from Congo through Uganda and flew from Entebbe to Nairobi on October 3. The patient died two days later. Baryomunsi said all 60 contacts linked to that case in Uganda had now completed their 21-day monitoring period and been discharged. The contacts were traced across points of entry and exit, hotels and transport operators.

The Nigerian case involves a woman who had travelled from Uganda and is the wife of a Swiss diplomat. Genomic analysis showed the virus in Nigeria's only confirmed case was closely related to the strain in Kenya's index case, though Nigerian authorities said there was no evidence the Kenya case travelled to Nigeria or had a direct connection with it.

Ugandan officials said both travellers passed through Entebbe airport on the same day but had no physical interaction, a conclusion they said came from a review of the airport's camera footage, described by health ministry permanent secretary Diana Atwine.

A dispute over where the Nigerian case was infected

Swiss authorities have said the woman in the Nigerian case contracted the virus in Uganda. Baryomunsi rejected that in public on Sunday. He said relatives from Uganda's West Nile region had visited her in Kansanga, a suburb of Kampala, and that those relatives had visited Congo.

"What evidence do they have that she never travelled there?" he said of the Swiss position. "We should speak science, not politics." He called the Swiss statement premature, and said Uganda was reviewing genomic sequencing, travel information and the woman's movements with Nigerian authorities and international partners.

Why 21 days

Twenty-one days is the standard outer limit used for Ebola monitoring, covering the longest known incubation period of the virus. Uganda has fought several Ebola outbreaks before, and its health system treats any case passing through its main airport as a national risk, because Entebbe connects the region's outbreak zone to the rest of the world.

The quarantine applies to returning Ugandan citizens with Congo travel history. The government has not said it found any Ebola case inside Uganda, and it repeated on Sunday that the country is Ebola-free. What changes now is the cost of travel: a trip to Congo now means three weeks in quarantine on the way home.