By Spy Uganda
The Ministry of Health has confirmed the outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Mubende District, registering the first case in the country.
According to the Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Dr Diana Atwine, a male adult, aged 24, and a resident of Ngabano Village of Madudu Sub County in Mubende District presented with Ebola or EVD symptoms and later succumbed to the deadly disease.
“He presented with high-grade fever, convulsions, blood-stained vomitus and diarrhoea, loss of appetite and pain on swallowing, chest pain, dry cough and bleeding in the eyes,” Atwine said.
She further noted that while at the isolation unit at Mubende Regional Referral Hospital, he developed yellowing of the eyes, and tea-coloured urine and complained of abdominal pain which prompted the clinical team to extract samples from him for testing at Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) which tested positive for Ebola Sudan variant.
“We have already dispatched a team that has gone to work alongside the district rapid response teams, especially in the community tracking all the contacts of those who died and isolate [the contacts],” she revealed.
“We got the results on Monday and we are still investigating the source. But we have sent epidemiologists on the ground and they are working backwards to trace the contacts,” she added.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is a rare but severe, often fatal illness in humans.
The World Health body says that the virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.
WHO also notes that the average EVD case fatality rate is around 50 per cent, with case fatality rates varying from 25 per cent to 90 per cent in past outbreaks.
