Uganda, Nov 7 (AP/UNB) — Uganda has started vaccinating health workers against Ebola in a border district near the outbreak in Congo.
The vaccinations began on Wednesday and are part of a wider Ebola prevention plan in a country that has faced multiple Ebola outbreaks since 2000.
In recent months Ebola cases have been confirmed near the heavily traveled border between Uganda and Congo, where an outbreak in that country's northeast has killed 189 people.
The Ebola virus is spread through the fluids of infected people.
Anthony Mbonye, a professor of health sciences at Uganda's Makerere University, said the vaccinations are crucial to stemming transmission "in a highly endemic belt for hemorrhagic fevers."
Ugandan officials say twice-weekly market days during which 10,000 Congolese cross into Uganda have put the country at high risk.