Ugandan health authorities on Sunday said the number of Ebola cases had jumped to 16, while a further 18 people are also suspected to have the disease, fuelling fears of a spreading outbreak, reported The VOA News.
In a tweet, the Ugandan Ministry of Health also said the death toll of confirmed cases remained four while 17 others classified as probable cases had also died. The outbreak had already spread to three districts, all in central Uganda.
Last week, the east African country announced the outbreak of Ebola with the first casualty being a 24-year old man who died earlier this week.
According to the Ugandan authorities, the latest outbreak, which is linked to the Ebola Sudan strain, appears to have started in a small village in Mubende district around the beginning of September.
Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever whose symptoms include intense body weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea and rashes among others. People who are infected do not become contagious until symptoms appear, which is after an incubation period of between two and 21 days.
“The Ministry of Health Rapid Response Teams remain on ground to list and follow up contacts to the confirmed cases,” the Ugandan health ministry said on Sunday, urging increased vigilance.
Health ministry spokeswoman Emma Ainebyoona said the government has already imposed travel restrictions on non-essential work and a ban on large public gatherings in Mubende to stop the spread of the virus.
The World Health Organization says the Ebola Sudan strain is less transmissible and has shown a lower fatality rate in previous outbreaks as compared to Ebola Zaire, a strain that took nearly 2,300 lives in the 2018-2020 epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
In 2019, Uganda experienced an outbreak of Ebola Zaire. The virus was imported from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, which was battling a large epidemic in its northeastern region.
