Ugandan officials and partners from 16 districts and 21 border posts have concluded a workshop to share experiences and lessons from the response to the country’s recent Ebola outbreak.

The three-day stakeholder workshop in Entebbe was organized by the Ministry of Health with support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). It was part of a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through World Health Organization (WHO). 

Among other segments, more than 80 participants got an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate IOM’s Health, Border, and Mobility Management (HBMM) framework, deployed in response to Uganda’s eighth Ebola outbreak. 

In September 2022, Uganda declared an outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the central district of Mubende, which quickly spread to neihbouring Kassanda. The country was declared free of Ebola in four months later, after 143 confirmed cases and 55 deaths. 

IOM, funded by USAID through WHO, supported the EVD response, targeting mobile populations and ports of entry (POEs). After the end of the outbreak, IOM worked with the Ministry of Health and local authorities on a post-EVD recovery project, targeting affected communities as well as border posts and districts. Using HBMM as a guiding tool, IOM worked with the Ministry and other partners to contain the epidemic and prevent it from becoming a nation-wide or even international crisis.

The HBMM framework was developed by IOM in 2014, to improve prevention, detection, and response to the spread of diseases along mobility continuums. It targets points of origin, transit, destination, and return, as well as spaces of vulnerability, where migrants and mobile populations interact with local communities. Through the framework, IOM also supports governments and communities to ensure that affected and at-risk populations benefit from appropriate and timely support. Although the framework has since been used in several international health emergencies, it had not been subjected to a systematic evaluation by Government partners.

“We have evaluated the activities implemented in the response and it was clear that in all the strategic objectives under HBMM, they all scored above average, which is great. Under this evaluation, POE [rating] has moved from Red to Yellow and we are hoping that by the next evaluation, it will be green,” said Dr Andrew Mbala, IOM’s Senior Migration Health Emergency Response Officer for Africa and Middle East.
Workshop participants made several recommendations for optimizing the application of HBMM in case of public health emergencies.

They also reviewed the findings of a recent assessment of the capacities at the various POEs to respond to public health emergencies, as per the International Health Regulations (IHR). This assessment was meant to help the country prepare herself for the IHR Joint External Evaluation, scheduled for this September. 

According to Ms Harriet Mayinja, the Ministry of Health’s focal person for POEs, the JEE score gives a measure of whether Uganda’s port health system is robust enough to prevent cross-border importation and exportation of major infectious diseases. 

When the JEE was first conducted in 2017, Uganda’s pot health performance was rated ‘Red’ – 1 out of 5 – equivalent to a 20 per cent score.  In 2021 a multisectoral self-assessment by the ministry of Health found several improvements in port health capacities. Mayinja says that since COVID-19, and under the response to recent Ebola outbreak, many designated border posts have been supported with health workers, ambulances, as well as screening, vector control and other core-capacities.

Opening the workshop in Entebbe, IOM Chief of Mission Sanusi Tejan Savage said: "This meeting serves as an opportunity for us to reflect on our collective journey thus far, assess the impact of the post-EVD recovery project, and chart a course for the future."

Mr Savage hailed USAID and WHO for the financial and technical support for IOM’s Ebola response activities. He also commended the Ministry of Health for the response leadership, and the district technical and political leaders and health workers for their commitment.

Dr Michael Mwanga, the Ministry of Health Assistant Commissioner for Surveillance, Information and Knowledge Management, closed the workshop by noting that IOM’s work on Ebola had exceeded that of many other partners.
“It is only IOM that has achieved most of its objectives in the Post-EVD phase. With most other partners we did nice plans, but implementation has been disappointing” Dr Mwanga said. “So, continue giving us that support; it is highly appreciated, and top management of Ministry of Health is aware of the efforts you are putting into border health.”

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For more information/media enquiries, please contact IOM Uganda Public Information Officer Richard M Kavuma  - rmkavuma@iom.int