Authorities in Uganda have confirmed an outbreak of the Ebola in the capital Kambala with the first confirmed patient dying of the virus yesterday Wednesday, the health ministry said today.

This is the ninth outbreak of the virus in this East African country since the first infection of the viral disease was recorded in 2000.

The patient, a nurse at Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala, had initially sought treatment at various medical centers, including Mulago Hospital, as well as a traditional healer after he developed fever-like symptoms.

“The patient developed multi-organ failure and succumbed to the illness at Mulago National Referral Hospital on January 29. Post-mortem samples confirmed that he had contracted the Ebola strain found in Sudan,” the ministry said in a statement.

Forty-four contacts of the deceased have been recorded in the tracing to identify people who may have contracted the virus, including 30 health workers, the ministry said.

However, tracing contacts may prove difficult as Kampala is a populous city of more than 4 million people and a crossroads of traffic to South Sudan, Congo, Rwanda and other countries.

The highly infectious haemorrhagic fever is transmitted through contact with contaminated body fluids and tissues. Symptoms include headache, vomiting with blood, muscle aches and bleeding.

Ugandan authorities have experience and skills in dealing with the virus after so many years of epidemics, including laboratory testing, patient care expertise, contact tracing and other skills to bring recent Ebola outbreaks under control in a relatively short time.

Uganda last recorded an outbreak in late 2022 and the epidemic was declared over on 11 January 2023 after nearly four months of struggling to contain the viral infection.

In the latest outbreak, 55 of the 143 people infected died and the dead included six health workers.

Ebola vaccination for all contacts of the deceased will begin immediately, the ministry said. There is currently no approved vaccine for the Ebola strain found in Sudan, although Uganda received some trial doses of the vaccine during the previous outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced in mid-January that a possible outbreak of Marburg virus in neighbouring Tanzania had claimed the lives of eight people, stressing that the risk of its spread in the country and the region was “high”.

Uganda also borders Rwanda, which is just recovering from a Marburg outbreak, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Ebola cases are frequently recorded.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned this week of the risks of viruses, including that of Ebola, spreading from a laboratory in Goma, due to the fierce fighting raging in that large city in eastern DR Congo.