As Ebola infections continue to surge in the country, the Ministry of Education and Sports has directed all schools and learning institutions to break off for third term holidays on 25 November 2022.
“Pre-primary, Primary and Secondary schools are set to close for third term holidays on 25/11/22 due to the Ebola outbreak,” a statement from the Ministry read on Tuesday.
The ministry said this has been done to minimize the risk of Ebola transmission because school communities have potentially proven to be contributing factors.
Since the onset of the EVD on 20th September 2022, a cumulative total of 131 confirmed cases have been identified with 44 deaths and 43 recoveries in nine districts categorized as very high risk.
A cumulative total of 23 children have so far been confirmed to have the virus with nine deaths. Out of the affected children, a total of 11 children including five in Kampala, one in each of Mubende and Wakiso were school going at the time of onset of Ebola symptoms in five schools across the affected districts.
The Ministry however, has drawn guidelines for schools to follow before releasing students for holidays.
Among other guidelines, all schools have been directed to capture and file all learners and staff bio data including N.O.K and reliable addresses and telephone contacts of parents or guardians prior to their departure and end of the school term.
Schools with boarding sections will need to make special arrangements to cater for any learner that may require prolonged stay over one issue or another including being presenting virus symptoms.
Schools should also ensure parents while coming to pick their children, they must observe the established and public health and social measures in place including hand washing and temperature/symptom screening.
“School communities can potentially cause widespread community disease transmission once prevention and surveillance measures are not carefully planned for, especially at release of learners for the end of academic period.”
The Ministry said this was witnessed in 2021 when learners were released to go home freely despite reported ongoing school case clusters which resulted in significant and countrywide community transmission of COVID-19 with learners acting as key drivers in disease propagation to households and communities with disastrous consequences.
“This led to the presidential countrywide lockdown to try and curb disease transmission so these guidelines were developed after a careful assessment of the lessons learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic response concerning learners leaving school at the end of academic periods during an ongoing epidemic in the country,” the Ministry added.