Uganda declares Ebola outbreak after one person dies

[SBFNews]

Uganda declares Ebola outbreak after one person dies​

By David McKenzie, Sophie Jeong and Nimi Princewill, CNN

Updated 1015 GMT (1815 HKT) September 20, 2022

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health Diana Atwine, center, confirms a case of Ebola in the country, at a press conference in Kampala, Uganda Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022.

(CNN)Uganda declared an outbreak of Ebola after a case of the relatively rare Sudan strain was confirmed in the country, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.
The WHO's Africa office said in a statement the case was confirmed after testing a sample from a 24-year-old man in the country's Mubende district.

Ugandan health authorities investigated six suspicious deaths in the district this month. The country's health ministry said the 24-year-old patient died after displaying symptoms.

"There are currently eight suspected cases who are receiving care in a health facility," WHO Africa said, adding that it is helping Uganda's health authorities with the investigation and deploying staff to the affected area.

"This is the first time in more than a decade that Uganda is recording the Ebola Sudan strain," Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa said. "We are working closely with the national health authorities to investigate the source of this outbreak."

 

[laksaboy]

Travellers from 10 African countries can now enter, transit through Singapore​

DEC 27, 2021
https://www.straitstimes.com/singap...tries-can-now-enter-transit-through-singapore

Heng ah. Uganda is not on the list. Sinkies are so lucky indeed.

 

[syed putra]

Only one dead? And its a outbreak?

 

[Cottonmouth]

Only one dead? And its a outbreak?

One reported, the rest no evidence it's caused by Ebola.

 

[SBFNews]

Uganda has confirmed seven Ebola cases so far, one death
www.reuters.com

September 22, 20229:14 PM GMT+8
Last Updated 16 hours ago

KAMPALA, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Uganda has confirmed seven cases of Ebola including in a man who died this week, and seven other deaths are being investigated as suspected cases of a strain for which the authorities do not yet have a vaccine, officials said on Thursday.

The 24-year-old man who died had developed a high fever, diarrhoea and abdominal pains, and was vomiting blood. After initially being treated for malaria, he was diagnosed as having contracted the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus.

"As of today, we have seven confirmed cases, of whom we have one confirmed death," Kyobe Henry Bbosa, Ebola incident commander at the Ugandan Ministry of Health, told a briefing.

​

"But also we have seven probable cases that died before the confirmation of the outbreak."

Bbosa said their investigations had not yet pinned down the index case or "patient zero" but said the outbreak appeared to have started around the beginning of September "when people started dying" in a small village in Mubende district in central Uganda.

Uganda last reported an outbreak of the Ebola Sudan strain in 2012.

The strain is less transmissible than Ebola Zaire, Patrick Otim, health emergency officer at the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa said at the briefing, adding that it had a lower fatality rate in previous outbreaks.

However, Otim said the Sudan strain posed a greater threat because the world did not yet have a vaccine for it like it has with the Zaire strain.

"So it's very, very critical that at this point we treat this outbreak as serious because we may not have the advantage that we have gained in terms of advancement in medical countermeasures," he said.

Mubende lies on a highway that starts from the capital Kampala, connecting Uganda to Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Otim said this meant there was a threat of cross border transmission.

In 2019, Uganda experienced an outbreak of Ebola Zaire. The virus was imported from neighbouring Congo which was battling a large epidemic in its northeastern region.

In August, a new case of Ebola virus was confirmed in the city of Beni in eastern Congo. read more

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Reporting by Elias Biryabarema and George Obulutsa; Editing by James Macharia Chege and Alison Williams

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

 

[laksaboy]

You will hear this music playing inside your head when you get infected by ebola.