Uganda discharges last Ebola patients, says outbreak contained

Uganda has discharged the last eight patients who were recovering from an Ebola outbreak declared last month, health authorities reported on Tuesday.

The World Health Organization described the recoveries as a milestone and reflected Uganda’s speedy response to the outbreak.

Most of the Ebola patients were treated at the main referral facility in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

The lone fatality from the latest outbreak was a male nurse who died the day before the outbreak was declared in Kampala on Jan. 30.

His relatives were among those later hospitalized with Ebola.

Ugandan officials documented at least 265 contacts from the initial infection.

At least 90 of them have completed a period of quarantine during which they were monitored for signs of Ebola, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng told reporters in Kampala.

There are no approved vaccines for the Sudan strain of Ebola, which has spread in the latest Ugandan outbreak.

But authorities have launched a clinical study to further test the safety and efficacy of a trial vaccine as part of measures to stop the spread of the virus.

The last outbreak of Ebola in Uganda, which began in September 2022, killed at least 55 people by the time it was declared over four months later.

Ebola is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials.

Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.