Since 2015, the Uganda Public Health Fellowship Program (PHFP), the capacity building arm of the Uganda National Institute of Public Health (UNIPH) has been contributing to the number of epidemiologists in Uganda to reach the World Health Organization set target of at least one trained Epidemiologist per 200,000 population through the two year Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP). Additionally, PHFP started the Laboratory Leadership Program (LLP) in 2023 whose aim is to build a team of skilled and knowledgeable laboratory leaders to effectively respond to human and animal health emergencies.
After the two months (for the FETP) and three weeks (for the LLP) of competence based training in detection and response to events of public health concern, on 12th March 2024, the FETP and LLP fellows Cohort 2024 set off for their first ever group field investigation. An increasing number of incident cases of Conjunctivitis (Red eyes) was reported among inmates at the Uganda Prisons Services in 8 prisons (Luzira Upper Prisons, Murchison Bay, Kampala Remand Prison, Kaweeri, Erute, Lira Main, Pader, and Kasanda prison).
On March 7, 2024, the Ministry of Health received an alert from the Uganda Prison Services reporting 655 cumulative cases of conjunctivitis, 433 recoveries at a recovery rate of 66% with incident cases springing from police stations among inmate’s enroute court hearings in either Buganda road or Law Development Center Court respectively. Red eyes easily spreads among people living in crowded areas like schools and prisons given the structural settings of such infrastructures.
As part of the National Rapid Response Team, the fellows set out to establish the magnitude of the outbreak and the causative agent, assess possible risk factors, and recommend control and prevention measures.