The science and suspicion behind Uganda’s travel restrictions
SPECIAL REPORT | Uganda’s Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak was officially declared over in August. Yet the United States and Canada continue to enforce restrictions affecting travellers linked to Uganda. The measures raise questions about public-health risk, economic costs and the evidence governments use to decide when a country is safe to visit, Ronald Musoke reports.
On 27 August 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention declared Uganda’s Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak over. The announcement followed 42 consecutive days without a new confirmed case, the internationally recognised period used to establish that transmission linked to an outbreak has ended.
For Uganda, the declaration marked the culmination of a response that had contained an outbreak involving 20 confirmed cases and two deaths. Fifteen cases had been imported from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), while five were locally acquired among contacts and health workers. Eighteen patients recovered, and more than 800 contacts were identified and monitored. But the end of the outbreak did not bring an end to the travel restrictions imposed during it.
This month, Washington extended its entry restrictions for travellers originating from Uganda for another 30 days, while Ottawa extended temporary immigration measures until 27 November. The two policies are not identical, and neither amounts to a universal prohibition on every Ugandan citizen travelling to North America. Their practical consequences, however, reach beyond public-health screening: they affect travel plans, immigration applications and the movement of people whose lives and livelihoods depend on international mobility.
The resulting dispute is not simply about whether Ebola is dangerous; it is about how governments should assess a changing outbreak, how long exceptional restrictions should remain in place after transmission has stopped in one country, and what evidence should be required before those measures are lifted.
Ugandan officials and business leaders argue that the restrictions risk penalising a country that detected and contained imported infections. US and Canadian authorities, meanwhile, point to the continuing outbreak in the DRC and the possibility that infected people could cross borders before symptoms are recognised. Both concerns deserve scrutiny. The question is whether the measures still applied to Uganda are proportionate to the risk they are intended to manage.
A successful response, followed by a prolonged dispute
Uganda declared the outbreak on 15 May 2026, as cases were also being detected in the DRC. The two countries are linked by cross-border trade, family ties and regular population movement. The appearance of imported infections therefore posed a genuine public-health challenge, even though Uganda’s subsequent case numbers remained limited.
The Ugandan response included case detection, isolation and clinical care, contact tracing, surveillance and monitoring at points of entry. After the last confirmed patient was discharged on 16 July, the country entered the 42-day countdown required before the outbreak could be officially declared over. The WHO and Africa CDC confirmed the end on 27 August.
The distinction between Uganda’s outbreak and the wider regional emergency is central to the dispute. The end of transmission in Uganda did not mean the virus had disappeared from the region. The DRC continued to report a large and expanding outbreak, and international authorities remained concerned about further cross-border infections. On 15 October, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported more than 9,200 confirmed cases in the DRC and 4,400 confirmed deaths, alongside cases associated with the outbreak elsewhere.
That continuing emergency provides the strongest public-health argument for caution. A country that has interrupted local transmission can still face the risk of an imported case. Borders do not stop a virus, and the movement of people between affected countries makes surveillance and preparedness necessary even after an outbreak has been declared over.
But a continuing regional outbreak does not automatically answer the question of which restrictions should apply to which travellers, or for how long. Those decisions depend on the nature of the risk, the purpose of each measure and whether less restrictive interventions could achieve the same public-health objective. That is where the policies of the United States and Canada warrant closer examination.
Two countries, two sets of restrictions
The US order renewed on 11 October suspends entry for certain foreign nationals who have been physically present in the DRC, Uganda or South Sudan during the previous 21 days. The order is due to remain in effect for 30 days, through 10 November, unless amended or replaced. It includes exceptions, including for US citizens and nationals. Separate CDC travel guidance imposes additional requirements on US citizens and nationals: those recently present in the DRC cannot board commercial flights to the United States, while those who have been in Uganda or South Sudan, but not the DRC, must travel through designated US airports for public-health screening.
These distinctions matter. Describing the US policy simply as a ban on all Ugandans obscures its legal scope. The order is framed around recent physical presence in specified countries, rather than citizenship alone, and the additional rules for US citizens and nationals are different from the restrictions on foreign nationals.
Canada’s measures take a different approach. On 28 September, the Canadian government extended its temporary immigration measures for 60 days, until 27 November. Immigration documents; including visas, electronic travel authorisations and certain permits, are suspended for foreign nationals whose last country of residence at the time of their application was Uganda, the DRC or South Sudan. People affected by the suspension cannot travel to Canada using those documents, even if the documents were previously approved. Applications may continue to be processed, but final decisions are paused while the measures remain in place. Exemptions may be considered case by case.
Canada also applies separate travel rules based on recent presence in affected countries. Foreign nationals who have been in the DRC during the previous 21 days cannot board flights to Canada. Travellers who have been in Uganda or South Sudan may still be able to travel if they hold valid documents, but must undergo medical screening and comply with applicable public-health measures. Canadian citizens and permanent residents can return subject to those measures.
The Canadian policy is therefore not a simple ban on Ugandan nationals. Its immigration-document suspension is based on the last country of residence declared in an application. A Ugandan citizen who had been living outside the listed countries when applying may not be affected in the same way as someone whose last country of residence was Uganda.
That technical distinction does not eliminate the consequences. People with valid documents may find themselves unable to travel, while applicants who have already waited for decisions face further uncertainty. Families, students, workers and people seeking medical treatment may all be affected, depending on their circumstances. The central question for both governments is whether the scope of these measures matches the risk posed by the people they cover.
What does the science support?
Ebola is a serious infectious disease, and the Bundibugyo virus responsible for this outbreak has no licensed vaccine or specific treatment established for routine use. Preventing transmission is therefore a legitimate public-health priority. Yet Ebola is not spread through the air in the way that influenza or measles can be. Transmission generally occurs through direct contact with the blood or other bodily fluids of an infected person who is symptomatic, or with contaminated materials.
That distinction informs the WHO’s approach to travel. In its 27 August announcement, the organisation reiterated that it does not recommend travel or trade restrictions related to Ebola outbreaks. It instead encourages countries to maintain international movement while using proportionate public-health measures, including surveillance, testing capacity, rapid investigation of alerts, infection prevention and cross-border coordination.
The WHO’s position does not mean there is no risk at an airport or that screening is unnecessary. It means that restrictions on movement should be judged against the evidence and the public-health benefit they are likely to deliver.
A traveller who has recently been in an area with active transmission may warrant assessment, particularly if that person had contact with an infected individual. But a blanket measure covering people based on residence or recent presence in a country can capture many people who have not been exposed to the virus. It may also continue to affect people long after local transmission has been interrupted.
The scientific case for a measure is therefore not established merely by showing that an outbreak exists somewhere in the region. Authorities must also explain why the chosen group of travellers is covered, why the period of restriction is appropriate, and why screening, monitoring or other targeted measures would not be sufficient. The continuing outbreak in the DRC is a relevant part of that assessment. It is not, by itself, proof that every restriction applied to Uganda is necessary or proportionate.
The CDC’s own public update offers a useful point of comparison. On 15 October, it reported no active cases in Uganda and said the last confirmed patient had recovered and been discharged on 16 July. The same update continued to describe the outbreak in the DRC as a significant emergency.
Those facts support two conclusions at once; Uganda’s outbreak had ended under the recognised international criteria, and the region remained vulnerable to further imported infections. The policy challenge is to respond to both realities without treating them as if they were the same.
“A victim of transparency”
Uganda’s frustration was already evident months before the outbreak was formally declared over. On 4 June, during a joint WHO and Africa CDC virtual briefing, Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Dr Diana Atwine said the country felt it was being disadvantaged by its willingness to communicate openly about the outbreak.
“We feel that we, as a country, have been a victim of transparency and effectiveness in dealing with epidemics,” Atwine said. “The more we communicate, the more we are blocked, the more we are locked out, the more our citizens are stopped from travelling.”
Her remarks captured a tension familiar to countries that report outbreaks openly. Prompt disclosure is a core element of international disease control, enabling other governments to assess risk and prepare. But the economic and reputational consequences of an outbreak can outlast the outbreak itself, especially when travel measures are imposed quickly and lifted more slowly.
Dr Atwine’s argument was not that Ebola should be ignored. Uganda had reported infections, monitored contacts and maintained surveillance. Her complaint was that transparent reporting and effective containment appeared to bring little immediate relief from restrictions.
The concern deserves to be taken seriously, but it should not be treated as proof that foreign governments deliberately punished Uganda for being open. Establishing that would require evidence of the decision-making behind the measures, including the risk assessments officials relied on and the reasons they gave for retaining restrictions after the outbreak ended.
What can be assessed is whether those decisions reflect the available epidemiological evidence and whether the governments have explained their reasoning clearly enough for affected travellers and the public to evaluate it.
The cost beyond the airport
For Ugandan businesses, the restrictions have become more than a public-health dispute. They are also a question of access: to customers, investors, international meetings, education and medical care.
On 19 September, John Makombo, Uganda Wildlife Authority’s Commissioner for Biodiversity Management, criticised the effect of negative travel advisories on the country’s image and tourism industry.
“I know that Ebola has affected us a lot, but the biggest problem is the way our partners, the staff of the embassies of these countries (who actually reside in Kampala), portray us in the eyes of the international community,” he said. “They live here, and they have not died, but the negative travel advisories badly affect us.”
Makombo said the advisories had contributed to cancellations of gorilla permits and losses in conservation-related revenue. His remarks reflect the concern that travel warnings can shape decisions beyond the specific travellers directly covered by a government order. Visitors may postpone holidays; companies may reconsider business trips and investors may become more cautious when a country is repeatedly associated with an emergency.
Those wider effects are difficult to measure without detailed data. A cancelled booking may result from a formal entry restriction, a government travel advisory, an airline’s own policy or a traveller’s concern about the outbreak. Those factors should not be conflated. Nor should every decline in tourism or investment automatically be attributed to Ebola restrictions.
Nevertheless, the potential for indirect economic harm is real. Tourism, in particular, depends on confidence and advance planning. When warnings persist after an outbreak has been declared over, businesses face uncertainty about when normal travel will resume.
Ugandan tourism entrepreneur, Amos Wekesa, has called for a regional diplomatic response. On 14 October, he argued that the East African Community should engage the United States and Canada collectively, saying the restrictions function as “trade barriers for Uganda and Ugandans.”
Wekesa’s argument is that a united regional approach could carry more diplomatic weight than Uganda acting alone. He has also pushed back against claims that the restrictions are primarily political, saying: “[There is] nothing political about that, the world doesn’t care as much as we think. It’s basically because we are poor.”
Some people may say that is an opinion, not an established explanation for the policies. His comments,which attracted debate online however, highlight the economic vulnerability that can shape how a country experiences restrictions. Governments with substantial commercial leverage may have more influence when negotiating the removal of measures that affect their citizens and businesses.
Other voices in the online debate have suggested that Uganda’s governance and human-rights concerns may influence how foreign governments view Uganda. Those claims have not, on the evidence available here, established that such considerations drove the Ebola-related decisions in Washington or Ottawa.
Kenya’s case complicates the argument
The debate took on a new dimension when Kenya confirmed an imported case of Bundibugyo Ebola in a Kenyan citizen who had been living in the DRC. According to Kenya’s Ministry of Health, the patient travelled by road from the DRC to Kampala before boarding a Jambo Jet flight to Nairobi, arriving on 3 October. The patient had received treatment in the DRC before travelling and later died in Kenya. Authorities identified contacts among family members and health workers and began tracing passengers and crew from the flight.
The case demonstrates the difficulty of managing a regional outbreak when people move between countries. It also underscores the importance of accurate reporting. For instance, the patient’s transit through Kampala does not establish that the infection was acquired in Uganda. The available account identifies the patient as having lived in the DRC and received treatment there before travelling.
For Uganda, the case sharpened an already sensitive question. If an infected person can pass through a country without the infection being detected at the time, should that country remain subject to restrictions after its own outbreak has been declared over? Public-health authorities may reasonably consider recent travel history and regional transmission when assessing risk. But the case also illustrates why a traveller’s route, exposure history and symptoms are more informative than nationality alone.
Kenya’s response included contact tracing and quarantine arrangements. Such measures show how public-health authorities can respond to a suspected importation without assuming that every person who passed through a particular country presents the same level of risk.
The case does not settle whether US or Canadian restrictions are justified. It does, however, reinforce the need for measures that distinguish between active transmission, recent exposure and transit through a country where an outbreak has ended.
Ayebare’s diplomatic campaign
Uganda has sought to address the restrictions through diplomacy. On 28 August, the day after the WHO and Africa CDC formally declared the outbreak over, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau met Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Adonia Ayebare, in Washington. The US State Department said the discussion covered bilateral cooperation, including global health priorities, economic growth and regional security. Its public statement did not say that the meeting resulted in a change to the travel measures.
On 3 September, Ayebare acknowledged receiving inquiries from Ugandans concerned about restrictions affecting business, tourism, investment and, in some cases, treatment abroad. He said he was speaking to countries about lifting them and had received positive feedback.
The diplomatic effort produced some announcements of progress, although the status and scope of individual measures varied. On 26 September, Ayebare said the United Arab Emirates had decided to lift restrictions on Uganda, subject to a UAE delegation visiting the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority and other entities to assess preparedness. He said the visit was expected within seven days. The announcement was therefore conditional, and should not be read as evidence that all restrictions had already been removed.
The following day, Ayebare thanked Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba for his guidance during negotiations and named the UAE, India, Mauritius and Thailand among countries that had lifted Ebola-related travel advisories. An advisory, however, is not necessarily the same as an entry restriction, and the practical effect of each country’s decision depends on the measure it had imposed in the first place.
The different pace of these decisions is significant. Governments can reach different conclusions about the same outbreak, and may choose different combinations of screening, monitoring, quarantine and restrictions on entry. But those differences are most useful when the underlying reasoning is transparent.
For Uganda, the challenge is to persuade governments that the evidence of outbreak control justifies easing measures. For the countries imposing restrictions, the challenge is to show that continued limits are tied to a demonstrable public-health need rather than simply remaining in place because they were introduced during the emergency.
Is it politics, economics or precaution?
The continued restrictions have therefore prompted speculation that political considerations may be involved. However, the stated rationale from the US is the risk posed by the wider Bundibugyo outbreak. Canada has also said its measures are intended to reduce the possibility of Ebola entering the country and has cited concern about the situation in the DRC and neighbouring countries.
Still, critics say although governments have a responsibility to protect public health, including by preparing for imported cases, precaution should not take on a blank cheque status. Measures that affect travel and immigration should have clear criteria, defined time limits and a credible process for review. Where a country’s outbreak has ended, authorities should explain what additional risk justifies continuing restrictions that specifically affect people associated with that country. If the risk assessment has changed, the policy should be capable of changing with it.
There is also a distinction between measures directed at a person’s recent presence in an outbreak area and measures that suspend immigration documents based on a person’s last country of residence. The first can be closely tied to recent exposure. The second may affect people who have not travelled to the outbreak area recently and may have no known contact with an infected person. That does not automatically make the policy unjustifiable, but it raises a stronger question about proportionality and the availability of exemptions.
The Canadian government’s case-by-case exemption process offers one avenue for individual review, although the existence of an exemption mechanism does not answer whether the overall policy is appropriately designed. Likewise, the US government’s separate rules for foreign nationals and US citizens show that the restrictions are not a single, uniform ban. The relevant issue is whether the distinctions are supported by evidence and applied consistently.
A credible review should address these questions directly. What is the current risk of an infected person travelling from Uganda? How does that risk compare with the risk associated with travel from areas of the DRC where transmission continues? What evidence supports the 21-day period and the categories of people covered? What would trigger the removal of the measures, and how often are those criteria reviewed? Without clear answers, governments risk leaving the impression that emergency restrictions can continue by default, even as the evidence changes.
A test of proportionality
The end of Uganda’s outbreak did not end the Ebola emergency in the region. That is the strongest argument for continued vigilance, and it would be irresponsible to suggest that the WHO’s declaration makes all further precautions unnecessary.
But the declaration is still important. It confirms that Uganda completed the internationally recognised period without a new confirmed case and that no further transmission associated with the outbreak had been detected. The WHO and Africa CDC have urged continued surveillance and cross-border preparedness while also opposing travel and trade restrictions as a general response to Ebola outbreaks.
The challenge for the United States and Canada is to explain why their measures remain necessary in light of that distinction. Their decisions should be based on the current epidemiological picture, not simply on the fact that Uganda once reported cases. Where restrictions remain justified by the wider regional outbreak, governments should specify the risk they are addressing and why less restrictive measures would not provide adequate protection.
For Uganda, the case for lifting restrictions will be stronger when it rests on verifiable evidence: surveillance results, continued readiness to identify cases, cooperation with neighbouring countries and clear communication with international health agencies. Diplomatic pressure may help bring governments to the table, but transparent and regularly updated risk assessments are more likely to provide a durable basis for policy change.
The political question cannot be answered by suspicion alone. Nor can public-health policy be defended simply by invoking precaution. Both require evidence. While Uganda has an interest in ensuring that its outbreak response is recognised and that restrictions do not outlast the risk they are meant to address., the United States and Canada have an interest in preventing imported infections while maintaining policies that are scientifically defensible and proportionate. Those objectives are not inherently incompatible. The real test is whether the measures can be explained, reviewed and revised as the evidence changes.
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