Ebola Outbreak in Uganda Kills 16

By GODFREY OLUKYA

KAMPALA, Uganda – An Ebola outbreak has killed at least 16 people in western Uganda, a senior Ministry of Health official said Thursday.

Dr. Sam Zaramba, the health service director general, said laboratory tests in South Africa and the United States confirmed 51 Ebola cases, and of those 16 patients died.

The first case was reported Nov. 10 in Bundibugyo district, 210 miles west of the capital, Kampala, Zaramba said. The Ministry of Health has set up an isolation facility at the main hospital in Bundibugyo, where all the Ebola cases have been reported, he said.

Officials are closely following all the people who have had contact with any of the 51 people with the disease, he said.

Ebola attacks the body’s internal organs, and can cause bleeding from the ears, eyes and elsewhere. It is transmitted by close contact with infected animals or humans.

Uganda last had an outbreak of Ebola in October 2000, when 173 people died.

The World Health Organization says more than 1,000 people have died of Ebola since the virus was first identified in 1976 in Sudan and Congo. Primates, hunted by many central Africans for food, can carry the virus.