Scott McPherson's Web Presence

Newsweek magazine has weighed in on the escalating/deteriorating situation in Uganda.  And if you read the article carefully, and match Newsweek's suspected case total with the official records, you get a wildly divergent -- and extremely unsettling -- new number of potentially infected persons.  Not to mention the possibility of a deliberate cover-up of the virus by government officials.

The article itself is a good digest of what has already happened. And as we know and is proven by the presence of a reporter in the village -- Newsweek's Andrew Ehrenkranz (photo) -- there is no substitute for Journalist Boots on the Ground.  As admirable a job as as the Myhres' have done to update their blog, they are not journalists, aimed at extracting the truth. 

The paragraph in question is this one:

Some Ugandans, however, are questioning whether Museveni's government deliberately covered up news of the outbreak ahead of the recent meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in the capital city, Kampala. The government did not announce the outbreak until just after the conclusion of the high-profile meeting, even though government reports acknowledge that blood samples from infected patients were sent to South Africa for Ebola testing on Sept. 29. These samples were reportedly found negative for Ebola but were subsequently shown to carry a new strain of the virus at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta on Nov. 24—the second day of the Commonwealth meeting. The initial false negative may have been due to the difficulties of identifying the new strain—even the CDC tests took a day longer than usual—but that hasn't stopped public outrage over whether the government could have acted faster to stop the spread of the virus. "It looks quite strange, from a public health perspective, that blood samples were not taken [to the CDC] earlier," said Dr. George Pariyo, dean of the public health school at Kampala's well-respected Makerere University in a front-page Uganda Monitor feature investigating the suggestions of a government cover-up.

Other news regarding the actual number of infected, plus the prospect of large numbers of "super-spreaders" of the disease, are also mentioned by Newsweek:

Bundibugyo is at the epicenter of the outbreak, which began in August. Doctors in the town are monitoring more than 360 sick people believed to be incubating the virus and have recorded 18 local fatalities, including four medical staffers at Bundibugyo Hospital. Townspeople are terrified by the outbreak. Bundibugyo's usually bustling central market is quiet, and residents of nearby villages are anxiously reading newly distributed Ebola information posters. Hawkers sell the antibiotic Cipro at inflated prices on the street, falsely promising that it can prevent infection; local healers and herbalists are offering their own versions of a cure. (bold mine)

The piece continues:

But while the new strain seems to be less virulent, it also raises the possibility that the infected are now more likely to survive long enough to spread it elsewhere. Already there have been Ebola cases in eight districts across Uganda, with confirmed cases as far away as Mbale, a village some 600 miles from the outbreak zone. On Uganda's borders, neighboring Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Sudan are screening all Ugandans for symptoms and travel patterns in an attempt to halt the disease from spreading into their countries.

Let's hope the global media keeps its focus on this growing problem in Eastern Africa.  The entire story can be found at:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/76935