Ebola outbreak in Uganda claims first victim

Kampala — Uganda has confirmed an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the capital, Kampala, with the first confirmed patient dying on Wednesday, the health ministry said on Thursday.

It is the East African country’s ninth outbreak since its first recorded infection of the viral disease in 2000.

The patient, a male nurse at the Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala, had initially sought treatment at various facilities, including Mulago, as well as with a traditional healer, after developing fever-like symptoms.

“The patient experienced multi-organ failure and succumbed to the illness at Mulago National Referral Hospital on January 29. Post-mortem samples confirmed the Sudan Ebola Virus Disease (strain),” the ministry said in a statement.

Forty-four contacts of the deceased man have been listed for tracing, including 30 health workers, the ministry said.

Tracing could be challenging as the city is crowded with 4-million people and is a crossroads for traffic to South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and other countries.

The highly infectious haemorrhagic fever is transmitted through contact with infected bodily fluids and tissue. Symptoms include headache, vomiting of blood, muscle pains and bleeding.

Ugandan authorities have used capacity built up over years, such as laboratory testing, patient care know-how, contact tracing and other skills to bring recent Ebola outbreaks under control in relatively short order.

The World Health Organisation said it had allocated $1m from its contingency fund for emergencies to support quick action to contain the outbreak.

The global health body was also working with developers to send out candidate vaccines, it said in a statement.

Uganda last suffered an outbreak in late 2022 which killed 55 of the 143 people infected. That outbreak was declared over on January 11 2023.

Vaccination against Ebola for all contacts of the deceased will begin immediately, the ministry said. There is no approved vaccine for the Sudan strain of Ebola, though Uganda received some trial vaccine doses during the last outbreak.

An outbreak of Marburg, which is related to Ebola, was declared in neighbouring Tanzania last week. Uganda also borders Rwanda, which recently from a Marburg outbreak, and DRC where outbreaks of Ebola are common.

DRC authorities said they ware investigating 12 possible cases of Ebola in its northwest.

Reuters