Uganda has confirmed an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the city, Kampala, with the first confirmed patient dying on Wednesday, the health ministry announced on Thursday.
It is the East African country’s seventh epidemic of the viral disease since its first case in 2000.
After experiencing fever-like symptoms, the patient, a male nurse at Kampala’s Mulago National Referral Hospital, sought care at many hospitals, including Mulago, as well as with a traditional healer.
The ministry said in a statement “The patient experienced multi-organ failure and succumbed to the illness at Mulago National Referral Hospital on Wednesday.
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.
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 employed infrastructure built up over time, including as laboratory testing, patient care expertise, contact tracing, and other skills, to quickly control recent Ebola outbreaks.
The World Health Organization said it has set aside $1 million from its contingency budget for emergencies to help swift action to contain the outbreak.
The global health body was also collaborating with developers to send out potential vaccinations, according to a statement.
Uganda last suffered an outbreak in late 2022, which killed 55 of the 143 people infected. That outbreak was declared over on Jan. 11, 2023.
Vaccination against Ebola for all contacts of the deceased will begin immediately, the ministry said.
There is currently no approved vaccine for the Sudan strain of Ebola, though Uganda received some trial vaccine doses during the last outbreak.
An outbreak of Marburg, a cousin of Ebola, was declared in neighbouring Tanzania last week. Uganda also borders Rwanda, which has just emerged from a Marburg outbreak, and Congo, where outbreaks of Ebola are common.
