By Jack Kimball MUCWINI, Uganda, Oct 1 (Reuters) - A medic gently lifts the eyelids of six-year-old Peter Morris Opoka at a clinic in a camp for people displaced by two decades of war in Uganda. The yellowish hue of Opoka's eyes gives away the presence of the highly infectious Hepatitis E virus, which has killed more than 120 people and infected some 8,000 more in northern Uganda since last year. The infection is an added problem confronting hundreds of thousands of Ugandans as peace allows them to return to homes in a region devastated by a rebellion by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). "There is nothing back home for these people," said Julie Caillet, public health manager for the aid agency Oxfam. Since a ceasefire between the government and rebels two years ago, Uganda and donors have asked people in camps to return to villages in the north, whose fertile land could turn the long-neglected region into the country's bread basket. Rebels were notorious for killing civilians, rape, forcibly recruiting children and other atrocities. The government drove many people from villages into camps as part of its counter insurgency strategy. An estimated 10,000 people were killed in the war and nearly 2 million were forced to leave their homes. But peace talks have brought relative stability. Now Joseph Kony's rebels are less of a problem in Uganda than in the remote borderlands between the Democratic Republic of Congo, south Sudan and Central African Republic. That has encouraged nearly half of the displaced Ugandans to return home or to resettlement camps, aid agencies say. The returnees are already estimated to have boosted Uganda's food output by 2.4 percent in the 2007/08 year, according to the finance ministry, quite apart from the fact that they are no longer such a burden as when they were displaced. EASY TARGET But health officials in the northern Kitgum district say returnees have been an easy target for diseases including Hepatitis E and malaria among others. The Hepatitis E virus can be spread by food or water contaminated with faeces. There is no vaccine or treatment for the disease, which can cause jaundice, loss of appetite, an enlarged liver, nausea and vomiting. In some cases, the disease causes only mild symptoms, but it can kill. The most vulnerable are children and pregnant women. Health workers say the disease is now on the decline, but a 6 to 8 week incubation period means more cases could appear. "What makes fighting this disease so hard is the long incubation period. People will be spreading it in the village and not even know," says health officer Samuel Opiyo in Mucwini camp, some 470 km (290 miles) from the Ugandan capital. The task is complicated by devastated infrastructure in northern Uganda. Schools, clinics and water-holes are in ruins. In 2007, Uganda announced a $600 million strategy to tackle peace and development in the north, but little has been done so far and it falls far short of the needs of people returning to the region, aid groups say. Implementation for the three-year plan only began in July this year, and it was still unclear what impact it would have in a region where a sense of marginalisation helped fuel conflict in the past. In Kitgum town, Grace Ayoo feels she is one of the lucky ones after recovering from Hepatitis E and giving birth to a healthy baby. Some two thirds of registered deaths occurred in women since the outbreak began in October 2007. The yellow has largely disappeared from her eyes, but the fear of re-infection remains. "I feel better right now, but I'm still worried," Ayoo says. (Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
Ethiopian refuge-seekers rest on a roadside near the southern Yemeni village of al-Khabar after they arrived on a smugglers' boat from Somalia September 29, 2008. At least 52 Somalis died off ...
