At least 16 Ugandans dead in Ebola outbreak

November 29, 2007

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — At least 16 people have died of Ebola in an

outbreak in western Uganda, a senior Ministry of Health official said

Thursday.

Dr. Sam Zaramba, director general of health service, said laboratory

tests in South Africa and the United States had confirmed 51 Ebola

cases, and of those 16 patients died.

The first case was reported on Nov. 10 in Bundibugyo district, 200

miles west of the capital, Kampala, but the cause was not immediately

confirmed, Zaramba said. The Ministry of Health has set up an

isolation facility at the main hospital in Bundibugyo, he said.

Officials are tracking all the people who have been in contact with

any of the 51 people confirmed with Ebola, Zaramba said.

Ebola kills most of those it strikes through massive blood loss, and

has no cure or treatment. It is spread through direct contact with the

blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been

contaminated with infected secretions.

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

died and a total of 426 people were diagnosed with Ebola in northern

Uganda.

In neighboring Congo, WHO and Congolese officials said last week an

Ebola outbreak that killed six people had been contained.

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.

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