VIRAL MILESTONE

TRADITIONALLY, AFRICA HAS BEEN SEEN AS A RECIPIENT OF GLOBAL HEALTH INTERVENTIONS RATHER THAN A LEADER IN MEDICAL RESEARCH, BUT UGANDA'S EBOLA VACCINE TRIAL IS CHANGING THAT NARRATIVE, AND REPRESENTS A MAJOR LANDMARK FOR AFRICA'S SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY.

- By Sasha Star

In late January 2025, a nurse at Mulago National Referral Hospital in Uganda collapsed at work, showing symptoms that had been mistaken for malaria. Within days, he was dead. His diagnosis-confirmed only after his passing-was Ebola. His case became the first confirmed fatality in the outbreak, prompting health authorities in Kampala to declare an emergency and move swiftly to contain the virus before it spread further. It was the country's first Ebola outbreak in two years.

The healthcare worker's widow, a midwife named Afiya (name changed to protect privacy), was left to care for their two young children alone. She, too, tested positive for Ebola, along with the youngest child. "I was already in shock that my man had died. I thought, now the whole family is going to have Ebola, because I know how it spreads. I felt like God had betrayed me at that moment."

After several weeks in isolation and receiving treatment, Afiya and her one-year-old were discharged from hospital. But they returned to a community that no longer embraced them. Neighbors whispered, pointing at them in the streets, some actively avoided them. Sadly, so did family. "They turned against me," she laments. "They sent away my people from the funeral, threatening them, telling them that I should never go back because I will get killed. I have not stepped there ever since. It's been very traumatic."

In Uganda, as in many parts of Africa, burial traditions involve washing and preparing the body-a practice that becomes particularly dangerous during an Ebola outbreak.