The 32-year-old man, who worked at Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda, developed a fever and was eventually diagnosed with Ebola following multiple tests
A nurse in Uganda has died of Ebola in the first recorded fatality since the country’s last outbreak of the disease ended in early 2023.
The 32-year-old man developed a fever and was eventually diagnosed with Ebola following tests. He died on Wednesday and the Sudan strain of Ebola was confirmed following postmortem tests, a health official confirmed.
People who the man knew, including 30 health workers and patients at the hospital at which he worked – Mulago Hospital in Kampala – have been informed and encouraged to get tested.
Diana Atwine, permanent secretary of the health ministry in the nation, said health authorities are “in full control of the situation”. However, there are no approved vaccines for the Sudan strain of Ebola.
Uganda’s last outbreak, discovered in September 2022, killed at least 55 people before it was declared over in January 2023. Confirmation of Ebola in Uganda is the latest in a trend of outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic fevers in the East African region.
Tanzania declared an outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg disease earlier this month, and in December Rwanda announced that its own outbreak of Marburg was over. The ongoing Marburg outbreak in northern Tanzania‘s Kagera region has killed at least two people, according to local health authorities.
The World Health Organisation will send an initial allocation of $1 million (£810,000) from a contingency fund to support Uganda’s response, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, said in a brief statement posted on the social platform X. The statement said: “A full-scale response is being initiated by the government and partners.”
But Kampala’s outbreak could prove difficult to respond to because the city, which is Uganda’s capital, has a highly mobile population of about four million.
The similar disease, Marburg, originates in fruit bats and spreads between people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or contaminated surfaces. Symptoms include fever, muscle pains, diarrhoea, vomiting, and in some cases, death from extreme blood loss. There is currently no authorised vaccine or treatment for Marburg, which has killed dozens across Tanzania alone.
