Uganda Imposes 21-Day Quarantine on Citizens Returning From DR Congo as Ebola Fears Spread

Uganda has ordered its citizens who have travelled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to spend 21 days in quarantine on their return, part of a wider push to guard against Ebola.

Health Minister Chris Baryomunsi announced the rule at a news conference in Kampala on Sunday, October 25. The move comes as Ebola cases in Kenya and Nigeria have prompted new questions about travellers who pass through Uganda. According to the Ministry of Health, returnees will have to cover the cost of their own quarantine.

Uganda says it currently has no active infections. It declared its own Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak finished on July 28, after 20 infections and two deaths. Officials have since reinforced screening at Entebbe International Airport and at land border crossings, and every arriving traveller must fill out a form giving contact details.

The new measures follow a dispute over a case abroad. Swiss authorities have said a Ugandan-born woman married to a Swiss diplomat contracted Ebola while visiting Uganda in September. Nigeria confirmed her infection on October 20, after she had travelled to its capital, Abuja.

Baryomunsi challenged the finding at Sunday's briefing. He said relatives who had earlier been in DRC met the woman in a suburb of Kampala, and he asked whether that possible route of exposure had been ruled out. "We should speak science, not politics," he said. The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that the information it had received did not show that the woman herself had travelled to DRC. Nigerian and Ugandan officials are now looking into her movements and the likely source of her infection.

Investigators are also examining the case of a Kenyan man who travelled from DRC through Uganda and flew to Nairobi on October 3. He died two days later, and Kenya has since reported a second Ebola death. Both patients passed through Entebbe airport on the same day, but Ugandan officials said security footage showed no physical interaction between them. Nigerian authorities reported that genetic testing found closely related viruses in the two cases, though no direct link has been established.

Baryomunsi added that 60 people traced in Uganda after possible contact with the Kenyan patient have completed 21 days of monitoring and been discharged.

In DRC, where the outbreak began in May, the WHO had recorded 9,704 cases and 4,687 deaths by October 20. The virus has reached eight Congolese provinces, making this the country's largest recorded Ebola outbreak. The Bundibugyo strain behind it has no approved vaccine or specific treatment. Ebola, which can cause haemorrhagic fever, spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people.

Symptoms can take up to 21 days to appear, according to the WHO. In its October 23 update, the agency called for stronger monitoring and cross-border cooperation, while advising against restrictions on travel or trade with affected countries.