Uganda is battling Ebola outbreak again, with death toll climbing to 19

The new Ebola outbreak in Uganda has killed 19 people while five medical staff members that contracted the virus have recovered and been discharged from an isolation unit, the Ministry of Health in Kampala said Tuesday (11 October).
According to the country’s health minister Jane Ruth Aceng, five affected districts have seen “54 cumulative confirmed cases,“ with 19 deaths and 20 recoveries. She added that the five medical staff members contracted Ebola from treating the first confirmed case in the East African nation last month. The Ugandan government is counting only deaths among confirmed patients, according to the ministry. Ebola is often fatal, but vaccines and treatments are now available for the hemorrhagic fever, which is transmitted to humans by infected animals.
The first cases were reported in the center part of the country, in Mubende district, before the epidemic, confirmed by the authorities on 20 September, spread to the neighboring districts of Kassanda, Kyegegwa and Kagadi. According to WHO, the first identified death from the outbreak — and first person to die from the disease in Uganda since 2019 — succumbed to a “relatively rare” strain of Ebola virus, known as Sudanese, which had not been reported in the Great Lakes country since 2012. Uganda has had previous outbreaks of Ebola, a disease that has killed thousands across Africa since its discovery in 1976 in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.