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Schools were closed in Gulu after a student vomited and was abandoned on the school playground by fellow students and even teachers. The student's mother came to treat the child, who was later believed to have malaria and not Ebola.

Church services and all public meetings were also shut down indefinitely and communion was also postponed because churches most commonly use either a one cup or dipping method, which church and government leaders feared could spread the virus.

"People would like to pray (in church) but not to sit touching someone," Bishop Onweng said.

Not touching another person in this overcrowded town of refuge is easier said than done. Most of Gulu's residents are refugees from rebel fighting along Uganda's border with Sudan. They stay in Gulu for military protection, but they are now finding there is no safe haven, even among family. Whole families have died of Ebola. One Gulu resident carried his child to be buried then also died of the Ebola virus days later.

The majority of the victims are women because of their cultural role of nursing the sick and bathing the dead. At Lacor Hospital, where the first cases of Ebola were discovered, a mother wore latex gloves and a mask while holding her infected child in her arms. But this week hospital personnel have removed families and have taken the primary care role from the mothers. After three student nurses died of Ebola, health workers are using extreme caution, including gloves, masks and goggles when available.

Health officials in Gulu have also discouraged attending funerals. At one funeral, those who buried the body of an Ebola victim burned their own clothes after the burial. Before burial Ugandans often wash the dead body while verbally saying "goodbye" or "praying" to the spirit of the deceased to protect the surviving family and give them good crops and health. Women also customarily sit with the body wrapped and lying on the floor in a mud hut for one to three days before burial. Burial is usually near the family home rather than in a cemetery. Health officials, however, are requiring residents to give up these intimate funeral rites during the Ebola epidemic.

"We have broken culture, but this is a good response," Bishop Onweng said.

Soldiers and prisoners have instead been outfitted with protective gloves, goggles, masks, and boots in order to dispose of bodily fluids and corpses in designated burial grounds. Bodies are wrapped in cloth or plastic at the hospital and taken directly for burial.

Uganda Ministry of Health, WHO, and the CDC may have prevented hundreds or even thousands of deaths in Uganda. But the nation is still one of the poorest in the world and general health is also among the worst in the world. Life expectancy is below 50 for both men and women. And ten percent of all children born in Uganda die before the age of five. During the time period of the Ebola epidemic, more Ugandan children have died of illnesses unrelated to Ebola—such as preventable dehydration from diarrhea—than those who have died of Ebola.

Christianity Today reported earlier this year about the Sudan-supported Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) abducting Ugandan children to fight in their rebel war.

Christianity Today also reported on the cultic mass murder of 900 in Uganda.

For more links to Uganda news and information, go to ugandamissions.org.

More on the Ebola outbreak is available from Yahoo's Full Coverage area on Uganda.

News coverage of the Ebola outbreak includes:

Ebola infections rise to 111—News24 South Africa (Oct. 20, 2000)

'Ebola can be contained'—News24 South Africa (Oct. 20, 2000)

Uganda, internat'l teams mobilise against Ebola—News24 South Africa (Oct. 20, 2000)

U.S. Experts Help Uganda on Ebola—Associated Press (Oct. 20, 2000)

UN stay despite Ugandan Ebola outbreak—BBC (Oct. 20, 2000)

Ebola strain identified—BBC (Oct. 20, 2000)

Ebola: experts praise Uganda's fast response—The Independent (Oct. 19, 2000)

Ebola outbreak traced to woman—City Press South Africa (Oct. 19, 2000)

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October (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44