By Spy Uganda
Kampala: Ebola has claimed the life of another health worker identified as Dr John Grace Walugembe bringing the number of health workers who have succumbed to the deadly virus to five.
This has been confirmed by the Mubende Resident District Commissioner (RDC), Rosemary Byabashaija saying Dr Walugembe passed away on Sunday, October 17 2022.
According to Byabashaija, Dr Walugembe was a laboratory technician at Mubende regional referral hospital and a proprietor of Life Care Medical clinic in Kirungi south division in Mubende municipality,
The RDC has last week revealed that the Mubende task force together with a health surveillance team closed Dr Walugembe’s clinic for attending to a woman who later died at his clinic while presenting signs and symptoms of Ebola.
“We yesterday closed a clinic in Kirungi which has been attending to Ebola suspects. On Sunday, a woman died from that clinic bleeding from mouth and nose,” Byabasaija told the press on Tuesday last week.
Dr. Walugembe, who was picked up from his clinic on Monday later tested positive for Ebola and was receiving treatment from Mubende regional referral hospital before he passed on On Sunday afternoon.
Walugembe now becomes the fifth health worker to succumb to Ebola since the outbreak that was announced on 20 September 2022.
Other health workers who have succumbed to Ebola include Kenneth Ssendagi, an enrolled nurse at St Florence medical centre in Ngabano Madudu who passed on September 15, Ronald Agaba, 23, a health assistant in Kagadi district, Tanzanian trainee doctor Mohamad Ali, and Margaret Nabisubi an anaesthetic officer at Mubende regional referral hospital.
According to World Health Organization(WHO), Ebola is transmitted through contact with the blood, stool or fluids of an infected person and objects that have been contaminated with body fluids from an infected person.
One can also contract the disease through contact with blood, secretions, organs, or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as fruit bats and other wild animals.
The known symptoms of Ebola include high body temperatures, fatigue, chest pain, diarrhoea, vomiting, unexplained bleeding, and yellowing of the eyes. Bleeding is usually a late presentation after the above symptoms, according to the Health ministry.
