WHO had classified the Ebola outbreaks in Congo and Uganda as a global public health emergency on May 17, under the International Health Regulations, 2005.
India has not reported any cases linked to the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus so far.
“Government of India advises all its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and South Sudan,” the country’s health ministry said in a travel advisory issued on Saturday.
The ministry said WHO’s International Health Regulations Emergency Committee had issued temporary recommendations on May 22, asking countries to strengthen disease surveillance at points of entry to “detect, assess, report and manage travellers with unexplained febrile illness arriving from areas with documented” cases of the Bundibugyo virus strain.
Countries bordering the DRC and Uganda, including South Sudan, were considered at high risk of disease transmission.
Ebola disease caused by the Bundibugyo strain is a severe viral haemorrhagic fever with a high mortality rate, with no approved vaccines or specific treatments for the strain for now.
In Uganda, where WHO recognised the strain’s risk as “very high”, a total of five people have been infected so far.
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(Edited by : Tenzin Norzom)
