Rwanda sets up Ebola prevention booth at border with Uganda

The Rwandan authorities have set up an Ebola prevention booth at the Gatuna border crossing with Uganda.

Anyone who crosses the border is invited to have their temperature taken, and if they have symptoms, they are placed in a quarantine room before being transported to an hospital.

"This is where we receive people who come from Uganda and who show symptoms of Ebola. W7e try to find out as much as possible about their background before they arrive in Rwanda, whether they have been a contact case or not. Afterwards, they are transferred to the hospital in Byumba", said Consolée Niwemahoro, member of the outbreak prevention unit.

At least, 60 people showed potential symptoms of Ebola, such as fever, but after testing and quarantine, no one tested positive for the disease.

John Gilbert, a Kenyan citizen crossing the border said "I have very little information about Ebola, because where I come from, people are not scared of Ebola. You hear that it exists in some parts of Uganda, but not at the Bouzia border. So me passing through, I was comfortable since I did some outskirts part of Uganda not even passing through. So we are not even scared. It's just something I came to notice that 'okay there is Ebola' when I came to this border".

Another Kenyan crossing the border, Kenedy Mayna, added: 

"I hope we get over this soon. It's scary, but what can we do? We have to keep looking for work and you have to crossing borders and you have to believe that you will be okay at end of the day", he said. 

Uganda declared an outbreak of the Sudan strain of Ebola on Sept. 20th. 

The epicentre is a rural community in central Uganda (Mubende) about 150 kilometres from the capital, Kampala.