Ebola spreads to eastern Uganda
A health worker at Mubende Regional Referral Hospital after an outbreak of Ebola in Uganda on September 20, 2022.
Uganda's Ministry of Health said that Ebola has spread to the eastern part of the country beyond the epicenter in the central region.
Ruth Aceng, minister of health, said Sunday that a confirmed fatal case, who is a 45-year-old male, has been reported in the Jinja district of eastern Uganda. The man, a farmer, was admitted at a local health centre following his referral from a private clinic.
He had earlier on been admitted to the clinic on suspicion that he had typhoid. He presented with fever, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, muscle pain, cough, difficulty in breathing and swallowing, and sore throat.
A medical worker said that when the patient failed to improve, they decided to test for Ebola since he had informed them that he was in close contact with another case with similar symptoms in Kampala City.
According to the Health minister's tweets, the farmer was linked to a probable Ebola case, his brother, who traveled to Jinja from the Ugandan capital Kampala where he was said to have contracted the disease, and died on November 3 after falling ill for 10 days.
Contact tracing and epidemiological investigations have been activated, Aceng added.
Ministry of Health figures as of November 6 showed that the country had registered 135 confirmed cases since the outbreak was reported on September 20.
