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Local authorities in the Gulu region have suspended indefinitely nearly all local church worship and most other public gatherings following an outbreak of Ebola, one of the world's most virulent viruses.

Since the outbreak in Gulu, Uganda, Charles Oneka cannot find his brother, who is an ambulance driver in the region. "I'm very worried. My brother is carrying many sick people," Oneka said putting down the phone after trying six different numbers to reach his brother in Gulu, which is 215 miles from Kampala, Uganda's capital.

"If the virus reaches those refugee camps near Gulu it will be very bad," Oneka told Christianity Today

Like most of the 21 million Ugandans who have seen their share of grief, Oneka too is clucking his tongue and shaking his head, asking why yet another catastrophe has shaken Uganda. Health officials traced the source of the Ebola outbreak to one family in Gulu who were infected by an unknown source in September. But since the news of the Ebola epidemic went out early this week, residents are afraid to touch one another. And those with a nosebleed or diarrhea are feared to have the dreaded disease.

"People were panicking," Gulu policeman Wilson Odur said. And Ugandans nationwide fear the disease will spread to their regions. The mostly rural farming population of Uganda is still confused about how the virus spreads. Ministry of Health, World Health Organization (WHO), and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) officials, meanwhile, are educating rural and mostly illiterate subsistence farmers about hygiene to prevent the spread of the virus. Broadcasts on Radio Freedom Gulu even discourage shaking hands.

'"I'm terrified. This disease can kill in just a few days," George Kabwagu, a Jinja resident, said.

The first-ever outbreak in Uganda of Ebola hemorrhagic fever has infected 111 persons and killed 41 in the northern Uganda town of Gulu, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported earlier this week. Health workers in locally-made cloth masks and some in double latex gloves, meanwhile, continue to canvas Gulu district where they are finding ten new cases of Ebola daily among a frightened population.

The devastating Ebola virus is transmitted by direct contact with the bodily fluids such as blood and saliva of infected persons. The most potent virus known today, Ebola hemorrhagic fever kills the majority of victims within two weeks of infection. Victims suffer flu-like symptoms, vomiting and diarrhea, then as organs fail and blood does not clot they bleed out of all the bodily orifices in the final hours before death.

But at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in Gulu a Church of Uganda bishop sees the hand of God working where others only see a curse. "One Christian called me from Kampala and said our community (Gulu) is cursed," says Onono Onweng, bishop of Gulu district.

"But even where there is hopelessness God always provides a way. He is now helping us through the international community," Bishop Onweng told CT. Onweng believes Gulu residents have also helped themselves by staying home and following the advice of health officials. But Ugandans must not keep quiet, says the bishop. "My message is that we need to cry to God to restore our community," Bishop Onweng said.

Early in the Ebola epidemic the disease spread to those who buried the Ebola victims. One woman was infected when she gave away her clothing to bury an Ebola victim. In place of her clothes she wrapped in a blanket which had covered the Ebola victim and contained bodily fluids from the deceased.

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October (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44