KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) \u2014 Boon-dee-BOO-joh.<\/p>\n
Before it became the somewhat easy-to-mispronounce name of a rare type of Ebola virus<\/a>, Bundibugyo is a mountainous district in western Uganda that even some locals would struggle to pinpoint on a map.<\/p>\n It’s home to roughly 200,000 people. Many are cocoa farmers<\/a> who search for whatever cultivable land they can find in the impossibly steep landscape of hills and valleys marking Uganda\u2019s border with Congo. As an example of the classic village idyll, Bundibugyo is a beautiful place.<\/p>\n Yet it now trends for an unpleasant reason, making some Ugandans rue Bundibugyo’s association with the current Ebola outbreak, which has infected hundreds of people in eastern Congo. There are 160 suspected Ebola deaths<\/a> in two provinces.<\/p>\n Virus type discovered in 2007<\/p>\n The Ugandan district’s connection to the Bundibugyo virus<\/a> stems from an Ebola outbreak there nearly two decades ago that was flagged as a new species of Ebola, a viral disease that usually manifests as hemorrhagic fever.<\/p>\n The outbreak wasn’t the Sudan virus, named for the area in present-day South Sudan where that type was first identified. It also wasn’t the type known as Zaire, as present-day Congo was known when Ebola \u2014 itself the name of a Congolese river \u2014 was first discovered in 1976.<\/p>\n So the November 2007 outbreak in a remote part of western Uganda came to be known as Bundibugyo, one that scientists even now haven’t studied as much. That is why Ebola specialists say it is particularly dangerous. Moreover, it was spreading in Congolese villages before health authorities there identified it as the cause of sickness in a growing number of people.<\/p>\n The 2007 outbreak in Bundibugyo killed at least 37 people but had been contained by the end of the year. A second outbreak of the Bundibugyo virus, also relatively small, came in 2012 in Congo’s northeast.<\/p>\n Initial cases in those outbreaks were identified early, allowing for a quick public health response, according to Dr. Tom Ksiazek, a University of Texas Medical Branch virologist who directed the group within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that first identified the Bundibugyo virus.<\/p>\n Ugandans upset about the name<\/p>\n This time, while there is no Ebola in Bundibugyo, a lingering connection to the picturesque Ugandan district is hurtful, said Ugandan government spokesman Alan Kasujja, who has urged global health authorities to clarify that Uganda isn’t the epicenter of the latest outbreak.<\/p>\n \u201cBundibugyo is too beautiful to be the name of a disease,\u201d he said on X. \u201cWe need to take back its name from this madness.\u201d<\/p>\n The World Health Organization is responsible for the taxonomic descriptions. As was seen with the global mpox outbreak<\/a> \u2014 the disease’s name was changed in 2022 from monkeypox \u2014 the United Nations agency is sensitive to the use of descriptors or tags that may expose whole communities to stigmatization.<\/p>\n With Ebola, however, the trend has been to name viruses for the places where they were first identified.<\/p>\n Ugandan health authorities have experience dealing with Ebola, one reason they are adamant there is \u201cno Ebola\u201d in this East African country and want WHO to be more specific in its updates on the toll of the outbreak now deemed to be of global concern.<\/p>\n Cases in Uganda linked to Congo<\/p>\n Uganda has reported five cases, all linked to the outbreak in Congo. One of them, a 59-year-old Congolese man, was admitted to a hospital in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, on May 11 and died three days later. On Saturday, Ugandan health authorities said a driver and a health worker \u2014 both Ugandans \u2014 exposed to that Congolese patient have since tested positive. The others are two Congolese women who sought medical care in Uganda before Congo declared an outbreak on May 15.<\/p>\n This outbreak is on \u201cthe Congo side\u201d mainly, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said Thursday, urging local tourism authorities to fight the perception that Ebola is spreading in Uganda.<\/p>\n Museveni urged Ugandans to \u201cstop shaking hands\u201d as part of measures to avoid infection. He also ordered the postponement of an annual religious event that attracts thousands of pilgrims, from Congo and elsewhere, who converge around a Catholic basilica just outside Kampala by June 3.<\/p>\n Other measures announced Thursday include the suspension of all public transportation and flights between Congo and Uganda.<\/p>\n Contact tracing is key<\/p>\n The risk stemming from cross-border commerce is high, said Dr. Emmanuel Batiibwe, who led efforts to stop an Ebola outbreak in 2022<\/a> that killed at least 55 people.<\/p>\n Stopping the current outbreak from spreading into Uganda will require \u201cenhanced surveillance at all points of entry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n