South African investigators have arrested the former head of the country’s national power provider, Eskom, on corruption charges. South African analysts say while this is a significant step toward tackling state graft, it won’t fix the country’s worsening energy crisis.

Matshela Koko, the former head of state power provider Eskom, was charged Thursday with multiple counts related to corruption, fraud and money laundering.

The lawyer leading the charge for the National Prosecuting Authority, Andrea Johnson, said in a statement, “This arrest is about accountability and rule of law … it is imperative for the country and its people that we serve without fear, favor or prejudice.”

Koko’s wife, two stepdaughters and other officials under his tenure also were charged in the complex case, which involves more than $121 million in power station construction contracts.

Analysts say the charges show growing momentum in efforts to tackle widespread corruption in state institutions.

“I think what this sends out is [the message] that if you are in a position of power and authority and you commit corruption, that the precedent has been clearly set that you can and will be held accountable,” said Gareth Newham, head of justice and violence prevention for the Institute of Security Studies in Pretoria. “So, it’s a very important principle that has now been established, and one of those lacking for too long in South Africa.”

Eskom was just one institution targeted in state graft — called state capture — under the nearly decade-long tenure of former president Jacob Zuma that was investigated by a judicial inquiry.

Among the inquiry’s recommendations was to strengthen the National Prosecuting Authority.

Current President Cyril Ramaphosa has done just that, by adding an independent directorate to the authority and giving it more resources, as part of his anti-corruption mandate.

Newham said the investigation into Koko exemplifies the potential of a strengthened public prosecutor.

“I think it shows that the hard work that has been undertaken within the National Prosecuting Authorities since the beginning of 2019 is starting to pay off,” he said.

Koko has maintained his innocence, and his arrest doesn’t mean a political win for Ramaphosa.

Analysts point out that other high-ranking officials implicated in the graft inquiry continue to hold offices under Ramaphosa’s watch.

“He has the authority as the president of the country, as the leader of the administration to remove certain people now on all levels of government… which he’s not doing,” said Ina Gouws, a political scientist at the University of the Free State.“If he’s waiting for the National Prosecuting Authority to do his job for him, when it comes to getting rid of caterers who are implicated in corruption, then you can imagine how badly that goes for the country.”

The trial, set to take place in March, will not fix Eskom and the country’s energy crisis.

The utility is billions of dollars in debt and implementing daily blackouts due to breakdowns at power stations.

“The recovery of funds from the likes of people that have been arrested recently is quite frankly, trivial at this stage,” said Clyde Mallinson, an independent energy expert. “If Eskom had an infinite budget, as we speak, and if they had an infinite amount of coal, we would still be where we sit at the moment, because it’s time that we’ve lost.”

While the public may welcome the prospect of accountability for corruption at Eskom, Mallinson said they can’t expect the blackouts to end any time soon.
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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is planning on replacing its naira currency to reduce excess cash, inflation and crime. Although the currency could be in circulation as early as mid-December, Nigerians will have until the end of January to exchange the old bills, after which they will cease to be legal tender.  

This is the first time Nigeria will have changed the design of its currency in two decades.  

The bank will redesign and print new bills for the 200, 500 and 1,000 naira denominations, CBN governor Godwin Emefiele told journalists during a news conference in Abuja.   

The action is part of authorities’ efforts to halt the slide of the country’s official tender, which has lost more than 35 percent of its value in the past year. The CBN said the measure will help tackle the issue of counterfeit notes and recall large amounts of money outside the bank’s control.   

It will also stifle access to money used as ransom by terrorists and kidnappers. These kidnap-for-ransom gangs often demand huge sums, usually delivered to them in cash.   

Emefiele pointed out that the currency in circulation had more than doubled since 2015, a “worrisome trend that cannot continue to be allowed.”  

Authorities say now more than 85% of the total money in circulation is outside the vaults of banks.   

But while some analysts praise the move — saying it could address excessive flow and stashing of cash ahead of the elections next February — others, like economic expert Emeka Okengu, say it is ill-timed.   

Okengu argued that, “You don’t stop counterfeiting by changing the currency, you do so by finding those involved and getting them arrested. This is not the time. Eighty percent of Nigeria is under water both economically and financially.” He pointed out that the change was too close to the general elections and that, “If they waited for twenty years, nothing stops them from waiting another six months.”  

Security expert Senator Iroegbu also questioned the decision.   

“The reason they gave on the surface sounds genuine,” Iroegbu told VOA, “But when you look at it holistically you begin to ask questions. How practical is this and why now? Most times they always cite insecurity. What is the benefit of such exercise on security? This policy will only affect the poor masses.” 
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In Malawi, protesters and opposition supporters chanted and marched Thursday in the commercial capital, Blantyre, to protest the high cost of living and alleged corruption.

The demonstrators presented a petition to the office of President Lazarus Chakwera.

Joshua Chisa Mbele, leader of Action Against Impunity, a network of civil rights organizations behind the protest, accused the government of mishandling money Malawi received to fight COVID-19, among other alleged transgressions. 

“We are tired of a government which is stealing day and night,” he said. “We have lost so much resources for the past two years. We lost the COVID money and we cannot take it anymore. We are saying that they should leave the office and go home.” 

Mbele also said Chakwera has failed to fulfill promises he made during his campaign two years ago, when he vowed to ensure food security to all Malawians and create one million jobs in the country once he was in power. 

There was no immediate comment from the government on the concerns raised by the protesters. 

Earlier this week, Chakwera fired Minister of Agriculture Robin Lowe and his deputy Madalitso Kambauwa Wirima over what the president called “incompetence and gross negligence.” 

The president blamed the two for facilitating a fertilizer procurement deal which saw Malawi’s government lose about $725,000 to a British company that failed to supply the commodity. 

The issue was among those listed as grounds for Thursday’s demonstration. Malawi’s opposition parties supported the protest, saying it was justified. 

Protester Rebecca Mwale said the situation in the country was growing worse, with food prices unreasonably high and medicines in short supply.

Mbele said he hopes Chakwera responds to the concerns once he sees the protesters’ petition, which was presented to his office. 

“In the petition, we are saying that we want to see action. We have heard enough, we have spoken enough, we want to see action. We want Chakwera to show leadership. We want him to take action so that we preserve what is remaining as people’s assets,” Mbele said. 

Similar protests are expected Friday in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, where protesters plan to march to the state house to present a petition directly to Chakwera. 

 
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The charity Doctors Without Borders said Thursday that Kenya’s Dadaab Refugee Complex faces a high risk of measles and cholera outbreaks as thousands of new refugees arrive from areas of Somalia where the diseases are circulating. 

More than 233,000 refugees live in three overcrowded camps in the complex.  

Doctors Without Borders, best known by its French acronym MSF, reported a sharp rise since January in the number of people fleeing to Kenya to escape drought, hunger and violence. 

Many of the new arrivals are from southern Somalia, where measles and cholera outbreaks recently have occurred, the charity said.  

MSF’s deputy program manager for Kenya, Adrian Guadarrama, said Thursday in Geneva that many are being received by refugee communities inside camps, but many more are living in very poor conditions on the outskirts of the camps. 

Last week, he said, MSF teams recorded three cases of measles and two suspected cases of cholera in Dagahaley, one of Dadaab’s three refugee camps. 

“This should be an alarm for all the actors and stakeholders involved in the response in Dadaab. Because we know that just one case of any of these diseases can cause a full-blown outbreak very quickly, affecting not only the refugee community, but also the host community,” Guadarrama said. 

Kenya’s Health Ministry last week issued a cholera alert following confirmation of 61 cases in six counties. 

Guadarrama said Kenya stopped registering new arrivals in Dadaab in 2015.  

Unregistered refugees, he said, cannot get basic services and assistance. He said clean drinking water is scarce, and toilets and handwashing points lacking. These conditions, he said, make the unregistered refugees highly vulnerable to life-threatening diseases. 

Guadarrama said the need for measles and cholera vaccination campaigns is urgent, but that devising a strategy is complex. Some people are scattered in the outskirts, he said, while others are inside Dagahaley camp. 

“We talk about a camp of 115,000. So, just to identify them is quite a challenge,” he said. “And this is why having screening, or a reception center or a registration center — that would be ideal — would allow us to cope with those activities and provide access to basic services including vaccination, for example.” 

Guadarrama said the humanitarian situation in the camps and in the surrounding communities is not yet at the breaking point and there is still time to avoid an emergency in a long and protracted crisis. 

 
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Ahead of COP27, Namibian and European Union officials say they have reached an agreement for Namibia to export rare earth materials to the EU.

According to Erasmus Shivolo, commissioner of mines at Namibia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy, the EU is interested in developing the mining of minerals like lithium, cobalt and graphite, which are currently mined on a small scale in the country.

Per Shivolo, “The EU is the one saying, ‘Well, Namibia has got certain minerals that are critical to the energy transition and therefore we want to explore opportunities in working together to develop projects in that space.’ ”

This possible agreement comes at a time when Western nations are seeking sources besides China for these minerals, which are used to make batteries for mobile phones, electric cars and other technology.

Shivolo added that the EU is also interested in Namibia’s ambitious plan to become a producer of “green hydrogen,” a clean power source that could be used by industry and to power electric vehicles.

The commissioner pointed to the promises made at COP26, the 2021 U.N. climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, as one important factor: “Everyone, almost everyone who has signed up to COP26 has made a commitment to reduce carbon emission in their respective countries by a certain percentage.”

He added that “it is not a surprise that countries who are the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are interested to do this because they need to clean up their environments.”

The head of the EU delegation to Namibia, Sinikka Antila, told VOA that Namibia and the EU are working on a memorandum of understanding. She said the memorandum is an outgrowth of an African Union-EU summit that took place last year in Brussels.

She confirmed that the agreement had not yet been signed, but will be soon, and said that both the president of the EU Commission and Namibian President Hage Geingob “agreed that we will start on building a partnership on sustainable raw materials and the green hydrogen.”

Antila pointed to another factor speeding up the EU’s pursuit of alternative energy sources – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “This situation makes it even more important now, because the fact is we have to get rid of the dependency on Russian gas because Russia is not a reliable partner at the moment,” she said.

According to Antila, the agreement may be signed as soon as November, during the COP27 conference in Egypt.

However, in Namibia, the agreement may spark new anxieties. Abraham Noabeb, community liaison for the Black Business Leadership Network of Namibia, said he worries that foreign companies involved in the EU projects may simply use Namibia for its raw materials.

“The mining sector is not Namibian,” he said. “It is in Namibia but it is not Namibian. The mines that are in Namibia are owned by foreigners, foreign nationals and foreign multinational companies and corporations. They are the ones who own these mines.”

Noabeb called for the government to review its policies and make sure locals have a stake in any mineral exploration projects going forward.
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The world’s top cocoa producers, Ghana and Ivory Coast, are boycotting meetings in Brussels this week of the World Cocoa Foundation on cocoa sustainability. Authorities in the two West African countries accuse multinational chocolate companies and traders of blocking measures to improve cocoa farmers’ incomes. 

Ghana and Ivory Coast account for about two-thirds of global cocoa production, but farmers in those countries earn less than 6% of revenues in a chocolate industry valued at more than $100 billion a year.

Yaw Attah has been a cocoa farmer throughout his adult life in eastern Ghana. He tells VOA that international companies are living off the farmers’ toil, while leaving them to wallow in poverty.

“Being a cocoa farmer is a tough job, I won’t lie to you,” he says. We used to have our children on the farms to help us, but now they have stopped us because they classify that as child labor. I don’t have enough money to employ more laborers.”

Attah says Ghana’s government must also re-examine the price it pays to cocoa farmers. Early this month, Ghana set the guaranteed price paid to cocoa farmers at $1,248 per ton for the main crop of the 2022-23 season.

The price is lower than the $1.36 per kilogram set by Ivory Coast in September.

Fiifi Boafo, the spokesperson for Ghana’s cocoa regulatory body, COCOBOD, tells VOA the well-being of farmers remains paramount to both governments.

Regarding the boycott of the Brussels meeting, he says chocolate companies and cocoa traders must show commitment to improving farmers’ incomes.

“Clearly, someone is ensuring that the farmer continues to stay poor. How do you expect someone who is poor all the time to sustain an industry that is always making profit? Clearly, there is something that is not right and it’s not the first time that we’re going to talk about it. We have talked about it and we have not had result and there is the need for us to find different means of making a point for everyone to know that something is wrong,” he said.

Four civil society organizations in Ghana and Ivory Coast have thrown their weight behind the boycott, saying farmers have always been given a raw deal when it comes to pricing.

Obed Owusu-Addai is the campaigner at EcoCare Ghana, one of the organizations pushing for change.

“How can it be that in an industry of about $130 billion, the farmer only receives only 6% of the profit? We think it is unfair, we think it’s about time we began talking about pricing as the most important issue when it comes to cocoa sustainability,” he said.

The World Cocoa Foundation, a group representing 80% of the global market, including major chocolate companies such as Cargill, Olam, Barry Callebaut and Nestle, did not respond to a request for comment.
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The first formal peace talks aimed at ending two years of war between the Ethiopian army and forces from the country’s northern region of Tigray started in South Africa on Tuesday and will end on Sunday, the South African government said.

At stake is an opportunity to end a conflict that has killed thousands, displaced millions, and left hundreds of thousands on the brink of famine in Africa’s second most populous nation, destabilizing the wider Horn of Africa region.

The talks, mediated by the African Union, begin as the government has been making significant gains on the battlefield, capturing several large towns in Tigray over the past week.

The government offensive, conducted jointly with allied troops from neighboring Eritrea, has raised fears of further harm to civilians, leading African, U.S. and European leaders and Pope Francis to call for a ceasefire and urgent talks.

The African Union said its chairman, Moussa Faki Mahamat, was “encouraged by the early demonstration of commitment to peace by the parties,” without elaborating.

South Africa “hopes the talks will proceed constructively and result in a successful outcome that leads to lasting peace for all the people of our dear sister country Ethiopia,” said Vincent Magwenya, spokesperson for President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The African Union mediation team is led by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, supported by former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Deputy President of South Africa Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

United Nations and the United States representatives participated as observers, the African Union said.

“We are looking very eagerly at Pretoria to the talks. That’s the only way forward,” Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said during a Tuesday press conference in Nairobi, Kenya. “If the parties do not really engage meaningfully in a negotiated solution, we’ll be in this situation forever.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the parties to engage seriously and agree an immediate truce.

“These talks represent the most promising way to achieve lasting peace and prosperity for all Ethiopians,” he said in a statement.

“Man-made famine”

The conflict stems from grievances dating back to the nearly three decades when the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a rebel movement-turned-political party, dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition until 2018.

After that coalition lost power at the national level, the TPLF, still powerful in its northern stronghold, fell out with the federal government led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

The government has accused the TPLF of seeking to restore its national dominance, which it denies, while the TPLF has accused the government of oppressing Tigrayans and over-centralizing power, which it denies.

The Tigrayan delegation has said its focus at the talks in South Africa would be on an immediate cessation of hostilities, unfettered access to Tigray for humanitarian aid, and the withdrawal of Eritrean forces.

The government has said it views the talks as an opportunity to resolve the conflict and “consolidate the improvement of the situation on the ground,” apparently a reference to its military advances in Tigray.

The war has compounded other serious problems in Ethiopia including a drought — the worst in four decades — that has caused a food crisis and damaged the economy.

Earlier on Tuesday, World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is from Tigray and served as a minister in the Ethiopian government in the past, issued the latest in a series of public criticisms of the current government’s actions.

“Due to the siege in #Tigray, Ethiopia, many people have died of starvation, man-made famine & lack of access to essential health care in past 2 years,” Tedros wrote on Twitter.

The Ethiopian government has denied allegations from humanitarian organizations that it was blocking them from accessing Tigray. It has accused Tedros of trying to secure arms and diplomatic backing for Tigray forces, which he denies.
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Policymakers from around the world met Monday and Tuesday in Senegal to discuss Africa’s most pressing security challenges. This year, attendees of an annual conference focused on redefining the role international partners play in promoting stability in Africa.

More than 1,000 people participated in the eighth edition of the International Forum of Dakar on Peace and Security.

Attendees included the heads of state from Cape Verde, Angola and Guinea-Bissau, as well as high-ranking officials from Japan, Saudi Arabia and France.

The event opened with a speech from Senegalese President and African Union Chairman Macky Sall, who spoke about the need to re-examine modern peace operations.

If U.N. peacekeepers are being attacked on their own bases, they can’t be expected to protect local populations, he said.

“Threats to peace and stability lie in the deep economic crisis that is shaking the world,” Sall said. “Millions of people can no longer bear the cost of living, and others fall into extreme poverty, with no hope of a better future.”

The solution, he said, is to educate and create employment for Africa’s growing youth population.

The conference took place in the wake of France’s withdrawal of military forces from Mali and ongoing criticism of U.N. missions throughout the region.

Militant Islamic violence in Africa has doubled since 2019, with a record 6,300 incidents in 2022 – a 21 percent increase over last year, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a U.S. Department of Defense research group. The Sahel has been the most impacted, with violent events quadrupling over the same period.

Across the continent close to 15,000 people have died this year from extremist-linked violence, a nearly 50 percent increase from 2019.

Aude Darnal, a fellow with the Stimson Center, a Washington research organization, said of the violence, “Solutions need to be defined by local actors. They also need to be implemented by local actors. International stakeholders should support, but the leadership needs to come from Africa.”

Nadia Adam, a Sahel analyst for the nonprofit Center for Civilians in Conflict, said solutions must be built from the inside. “Most African countries, especially the youth, now want to make decisions for themselves,” she said. “They want to be part of the change. And they have the capacity. More people are educated.”

Government officials attending the conference reiterated that message.

Chidi Blyden is the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for African affairs. In a speech, she quoted a Creole saying from Sierra Leone, which translates to “When and if there’s a problem, look exactly where you’re standing.”

“Some of the problems reside there, but more importantly, the solution probably resides there as well,” she said. “The continent is full of African solutions to global problems.”

The forum also addressed how to decrease Africa’s dependence on international food aid and become more resistant to external shocks, such as the war in Ukraine.
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Police in Uganda are investigating the cause of a fire at a boarding school for visually impaired students that killed 11 girls, ages four to 13.

The fire at the Salama School for the Blind in Uganda’s central Mukono district broke out shortly after midnight Monday, in a girl’s dormitory that was occupied by 17 children.  

Kampala deputy police spokesman Luke Owoyesigire said police have deployed a forensics team that will carry out DNA tests before the bodies of the dead children are handed over to family members. 

“The cause of the fire is currently unknown. But so far, eleven deaths as a result of the fire have been confirmed. While six are in critical condition,” Owoyesigire said. 

The Salam School for the Blind, in the town of Kisoga, is home to 70 visually impaired children. 

Hudson Kiyaga, the town’s mayor, told VOA the fire at the isolated school has left members of the neighboring community in shock. Kiyaga said the school’s power switch is in the matron’s room, but she did not know what started the fire. The matron escaped the blaze, but was unable to save any students. 

Charles Nkuse, a school board member, said the school headmaster called him at 12:15 a.m. to tell him the school was on fire and children had died. 

The fire broke out just a few days before a planned visit by Britain’s Princess Anne and Uganda’s first lady, Janet Museveni.  

“We expect to get the first lady, the daughter of the late Queen, Princess Anne, and the husband. They were to be with us on Friday, but I really don’t know what will take place,” Nkuse said. “But, we are still in terrible condition because, I think, the police are bringing back the dead bodies from Mulago and the parents are here.” 

Since January, several schools in Uganda have caught fire but security officials have yet to determine the cause of the blazes. 

In its guidelines to schools, the Ministry of Education advises that all dormitories among other school buildings have fire extinguishers at several locations. However, most schools do not have such safety measures in place.   

 
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The siege at the Tawakal hotel marked al-Shabab’s second major attack in Somalia this month amid an offensive against the group by the Somali National Army and allied militia in central Somalia.

In early October, a triple bombing in the town of Beledweyne left at least 20 people dead.

Abdisalam Guled, the director of Eagle Ranges Services, a Mogadishu-based security company, told VOA that al-Shabab is staging war in every part of Somalia and sending a message to the government in Mogadishu.

Guled said Sunday’s attack on the Tawakal Hotel in Kismayo shows that al-Shabab can attack anywhere any time. He said it also shows how al-Shabab has information about the people preparing themselves to fight the group. Guled says he has information that there were ongoing meetings in the hotel to discuss how al-Shabab could be fought.  

A long battle

Al-Shabab has been fighting to topple the internationally recognized Somali government for more than 15 years.

Guled warned that, should the government fail to defeat al-Shabab, the consequences could be disastrous, especially for communities that joined forces with the government and dispatched militias to the battlefront.

Guled said the fight against al-Shabab is going on in specific areas and, in order to weaken al-Shabab, there should be more front lines. Jubaland state should join the war; Southwest state should join the war. Guled said clans should be encouraged and  authorities in the Puntland state should join the effort.

Yusuf Hussein Osman, Jubaland’s regional state minister for security, described what happened on Sunday.

Osman said there were four terrorists; one blew himself up at the gate and three others forced their way into the hotel. All were eliminated, he said. Osman also said the majority of hostages in the hotel were rescued but there were casualties involving students from a nearby school.

Osman said plans were already under way for deceased victims of the attack to be buried.

Advice: Prep for a long fight

Abdiaziz Hussein Issack, a security analyst with the Hamad Bin Khalifa Civilization Center in Denmark, said the government should prepare for a drawn-out battle in Jubaland because al-Shabab has a strong presence there.

“I think Jubaland state is the stronghold of al-Shabab,” he said. “The fiercest war against al-Shabab will take place in this state if the group is defeated in central Somalia. The state is the breeding ground of al-Shabab as the top leaders are in this state.”

The raid on Sunday was the group’s deadliest in Kismayo since 2019 when 26 people — among them Somali-Canadian journalist Hodan Naleyeh — were killed in an attack on another hotel.
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Nigerian authorities have called for calm and vigilance after the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Abuja, issued a security alert warning of an elevated risk of terror attacks, specifically in Abuja. The embassy urged Americans in Nigeria to avoid nonessential travel and crowds, and to stay alert.

The U.S. Embassy warned Sunday that government buildings, places of worship, schools, markets, shopping malls, bars, and hotels, could soon be attacked. It urged American citizens in Nigeria to avoid nonessential travel and keep their mobile phones charged.

The embassy also said it would reduce working hours as a result but did not respond to a request for further comment on the matter.

Abuja-based security expert Senator Iroegbu said the warning is not surprising.

“We don’t know the extent of intelligence that they have, but it’s still in line with the security realities.”

Nigerian authorities have struggled to halt a stream of terror attacks and abductions across the country.

The situation is especially worrying in the north where Islamist militant groups and armed gangs —who routinely kidnap people for ransom — are active.

In July, heavily armed men breached the security of a correctional facility in Abuja and freed more than 800 inmates.

More than half of them were later recaptured but hundreds remain on the loose, including 64 high-profile terrorism suspects. Islamic State West Africa Province claimed responsibility for the attack.

Iroegbu said the threat to security has grown in Abuja, also known as the Federal Capital Territory, since the prison break.

“Even the military admitted there are sleeper cells of ISIS and other Boko Haram elements even with FCT and other surrounding states, and that these sleeper cells can be activated anytime. And since then, there’s no news I’m aware of that the presence of these sleeper cells have been unraveled and neutralized.”

Nigerian Kelvin Obumuke said he had an appointment at the embassy Monday to discuss a travel issue. The sudden security threat upended those plans.

“I was actually about boarding my flight when I received this email stating this and telling me of the cancellation of my appointment,” Obumuke said. “I was livid considering the emergency with which I needed to come to Abuja and how I had to purchase a premium ticket because I needed to be here today.”

Nigeria’s Department of State Services responded to the U.S. Embassy’s security warning in a statement Sunday urging citizens to stay calm but cautious.

Authorities also assured citizens that security forces would mobilize to avert any threat to national security and encouraged members of the public to report suspicious acts of criminality to the authorities.
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Ugandan health authorities have confirmed nine cases of the Ebola virus in the capital, Kampala. The Ministry of Health says it has increased vigilance and set up an isolation center as confirmed cases in the country jumped to 90, with 28 deaths. The Uganda Medical Association says health workers are facing challenges getting patients into isolation.

In a tweet Monday, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng confirmed that Kampala had recorded 14 positive Ebola cases in the last 48 hours. All have the Sudan strain. 

Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Ainebyoona tells VOA the public needs to know that Ebola is now within close range, with contact numbers in Kampala now above 1,800.

“There is Ebola in Kampala, without a doubt. The beauty is that we have already an isolation facility at Mulago,” said Ainebyoona. “We are setting up in the playing field at Mulago. We have an isolation facility in Entebbe. And most of the people testing are contacts who have been in our isolation and quarantine.”

In Aceng’s tweet, she asked Ugandans to report themselves if they or a person they know had contact with an Ebola patient.  

But health care workers around the country say they are facing obstacles.

Dr. Sam Oledo, president of the Uganda Medical Association, says the public’s habit of seeking local remedies and treatment from herbalists remains a challenge and places health workers at risk.

“If you’re a contact of someone who is under isolation, report yourself, other than you hiding and predisposing everyone,” said Oledo. “But now, the community members are the ones to help us to report to authorities which herbalist, which African traditionalists is seeing patients.”

The government is currently in the process of recruiting nearly 1,500 additional staff to combat the Ebola outbreak. 

The Ebola Sudan strain currently has no proven effective vaccine. Uganda has received supplies of two trial vaccines — the Oxford vaccine from the United Kingdom and the Sabin vaccine from the United States.

But authorities are waiting for clearance from medical investigators before rolling them out to the public.   
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