Uganda has sent 20 health experts to Sierra Leone and Liberia to help contain Ebola, which the World Health Organisation has declared an international emergency.

Slow response and lack of public trust in managing the deadly virus have been cited as being responsible for its quick spread.

READ: WHO declares Ebola epidemic a global emergency

The experts from the Ministry of Health and the Uganda Virus Research Institute flew to West Africa in response to WHO’s request made late last month.

Uganda, which has suffered four Ebola outbreaks since 2000, has built up substantial expertise to help the West Africans.

The US- based Centres for Disease Control, last week announced that the Ebola outbreak that started in Guinea in March, and has spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, had run out of control, but could be stopped.

This, health experts in Uganda said, was possible if the affected countries and the international community applied response mechanisms to prevent further infections.

“It appears that a trust gap has developed between health systems and the general population that has made control efforts difficult in the West African countries,” said Prof Francis Omaswa, executive director of the African Centre for Global Health and Social Transformation.

“We achieved public trust in Uganda [enabling us to isolate patients and suspected Ebola victims] through intensive communication.”

Uganda’s Ministry of Health issued press statements every morning, lunch time and evening, coupled with daily comprehensive media briefings on response mechanisms and progress. The country also established 24-hour hotlines for persons seeking information, and put up posters in different languages for mass education.

WHO’s health promotion officer in Kampala, Benjamin Sensas, who has been on the ground in West Africa, told The EastAfrican that communication there failed because national authorities did not carry out extensive early education about the disease.

“Some of the communities would hide those with the disease from health workers because trust had not been well cultivated. This made tracing them very difficult,” said Mr Sensas.