Health authorities in the border town of Nimule in Eastern Equatoria State have said that at least two people who presented with signs and symptoms of Ebola are currently undergoing medical investigation at Nimule Hospital.

The Magwi County health director, Gama Emmanuel, told Radio Tamazuj Tuesday that one of the cases is from within Nimule town and the other was brought from Pageri.

“Yesterday we received two alerts (suspected cases), one was from Nimule Hospital and presented signs and symptoms related to Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) but we deployed our Rapid Response Team (RRT) and began immediately to examine and referred the patient to the Out Patient Department (OPD) for further management,” he said. “Just after 3o minutes, we also received an alert from Pageri at the community level and the RRT team went there and brought the patient to Nimule Hospital for further management.”

Gama said a rapid response team has been deployed along the border to handle Ebola Virus Disease related cases. He added that four earlier contacts were discharged after an earlier suspected case tested negative for the virus.  

“Since we started responding to alerts, as of today we have had four alerts being reported in Nimule but three of the cases were dropped after the first suspect tested negative. So, they are being managed for other conditions.”

The Eastern Equatoria State health minister, Lodae Pasquale, confirmed that two suspected Ebola cases were being managed at Nimule Hospital but downplayed the severity of their symptoms. 

“These two cases did not present typical signs and symptoms of Ebola but have some signs, but for precautionary measures, we said we need to just observe them,” he said. “The two cases are in isolation because there is a special isolation unit that was recently created and this is where we make the observations.”

“The ministry of health at the state and national level is working to see that early identification of a case becomes a priority,” Minister Lodae added.