Ebola’s threat in Uganda extends far beyond public health

QUEEN ELIZABETH NATIONAL PARK, Uganda — Located about 200 miles from the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Congo, the fears of infection here are low. 

Yet the anxiety over the consequences of the public health crisis is sky-high in places like Katunguru in western Uganda, where tourism is the lifeblood of the local economy. 

Businesses here fear a wave of cancellations for lodges, safari drives, river cruises and a corresponding drop in visitors to the small shops and restaurants that have sprung up because of Uganda’s growing tourism market. 

“Before even getting worried about catching Ebola, people are worried about the economic living, how are you going to survive,” said Ronald Abigaba, 24, the manager of the Enshama Game Lodge and Campsite. 

“Because normally here people are surviving on whatever they get on a daily basis, or weekly or monthly.” 

I spent two nights at the Enshama Game Lodge as part of a weeklong trip in western Uganda.

The hotels were generally empty during my travels in mid-May — not unusual for the low season — but underscoring how important the high-season influx of tourists will be from June to September. 

“Life continues normally!” the Uganda Tourism Board said in a statement posted to the social platform X on May 19, adding the country has “ZERO local transmission or community infection.”

But that may not break through the international headlines. 

Days earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) included Uganda in its international outbreak announcement in mid-May after the discovery of a few isolated cases. Further raising fears, the Trump administration announced that it was banning all foreign nationals who had traveled in the past month through Uganda, the Congo and South Sudan from entering the U.S. That ban was then extended to Lawful Permanent U.S. Residents. 

In another major blow to the tourism sector, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni postponed the Martyrs’ Day celebrations scheduled for June 3. The national holiday........

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