Sixteen cases of Ebola have been identified in Uganda since Tuesday and the announcement by the authorities of the presence of an “epidemic” in the center of the country, announced Sunday the Ministry of Health.
On Friday, health authorities announced that four people had died of the Ebola virus in three days. All the deaths and cases had been recorded in Mubende district, regarding 150 kilometers west of the capital Kampala.
The Ministry of Health announced on Twitter on Sunday that 16 cases of Ebola have been identified since the start of the epidemic and that “cases have been identified outside Mebende”, three in Kyegegwa and one in Kassanda, in the center of the country.
“So far, no confirmed cases in Kampala,” said health authorities.
Uganda has previously experienced outbreaks of Ebola, a disease that has claimed thousands of lives across Africa since its discovery in 1976 in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
Emma Ainebyoona, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, told AFP on Friday that “travel restrictions for non-essential work in Mubende district, the epicenter of the outbreak, have been imposed”.
Health authorities in this African country in the Great Lakes region announced on Tuesday the death of a 24-year-old man from Ebola, a first since 2019.
The case of the deceased came from a “relatively rare” so-called Sudanese strain, which had not been reported in Uganda since 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Tuesday.
Ebola virus disease is often fatal, but vaccines and treatments now exist once morest this hemorrhagic fever, which is transmitted to humans by infected animals.
Human transmission is through body fluids, with the main symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea. Infected people only become contagious following the onset of symptoms, following an incubation period ranging from 2 to 21 days.
The disease has six different strains, three of which (Bundibugyo, Sudan, Zaire) have already caused major epidemics.
