A Ugandan health official on Friday said that the country’s last known Ebola patient has been discharged from hospital, raising hopes that an outbreak which has killed at least 56 people could be nearing its end, reported The Reuters.
The Ugandan health ministry confirmed the outbreak in Mubende on September 20, and said it was the Sudan strain of the disease, which usually kills 40 to 60 percent of the infected people and for which there is no proven vaccine. Several would-be vaccines for the deadly strain are heading towards clinical trials. The Sudan strain tends to be less deadly than the more common Zaire ebolavirus that was responsible for the 2014 – 2016 outbreak in West Africa.
“Happy to announce that we discharged the past Ebola patient,” Diana Atwine, a top official at the Ugandan health ministry, wrote on Twitter.
She said the authorities would continue to monitor people who had come into contact with infected patients until they have been clear for 21 days. She, however, did not reveal when the last new case was confirmed.
In October, the Ugandan government had imposed travel restrictions, an overnight curfew and closed places of worship and entertainment in a bid to contain the outbreak in central Uganda, but several cases later appeared in the capital and east of the country. The Ebola control measures are scheduled to be lifted on December 17 if no new cases are found.
The main symptoms of Ebola are vomiting, bleeding and diarrhea. The virus spreads via contact with bodily fluids of the infected.
142 Ebola cases have been reported in the latest outbreak in Ebola so far. A country needs to pass 42 days, which is twice the maximum incubation period, after the last confirmed case for it to be declared Ebola-free, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
