West News Wire: Days after announcing an outbreak of a particular strain of the illness in a central district, Ugandan health officials have verified the deaths of three more Ebola patients in the nation.
The health ministry stated in a statement on Friday that a total of 11 deaths, both confirmed and suspected, could be attributed to the outbreak.
Additionally, it stated that after four additional illnesses were verified on the previous day, there were now a total of 11 confirmed cases. The ministry stated that 19 additional people who were possibly infected with Ebola were receiving medical care in a hospital.
Authorities announced the death of a 24-year-old male on Tuesday and declared an epidemic in the Mubende district, which they blamed on the Ebola Sudan strain. About 130 kilometers (81 miles) separate Mubende from Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
Ebola is an often fatal viral haemorrhagic fever. It has a typically high death rate, ranging up to 90 percent in some outbreaks, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Human transmission is through body fluids, with fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea the main symptoms.
Outbreaks are difficult to contain, especially in urban environments. People who are infected do not become contagious until symptoms appear, which is after an incubation period of between two and 21 days.
The WHO says the Ebola Sudan strain is less transmissible and has shown a lower fatality rate in previous outbreaks than Ebola Zaire, a strain that killed nearly 2,300 people in the 2018-20 epidemic in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
At present, there is no licensed medication to prevent or treat Ebola, although a range of experimental drugs are in development and thousands have been vaccinated in the DRC and some neighbouring countries.
The worst epidemic in West Africa between 2013 and 2016 killed more than 11,300 alone.
