Kampala, Uganda | AFP | A five-year-old boy who tested positive for Ebola in Uganda has died, a health ministry official told AFP Wednesday, in the first spread of a deadly outbreak in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
“”The young patient died last night. Two more samples were sent to UVRI and have tested positive. We, therefore, have three confirmed cases of Ebola in Uganda,” Minister for health Ruth Aceng said.
Officials said the child was likely to be buried Wednesday.
Uganda’s health ministry on Tuesday said that the mother of the child was a Congolese citizen married to a Ugandan.
She had travelled with the child and four other family members back home to nurse her father who eventually died from Ebola.
Uganda has been on high alert since the outbreak across a porous border in the eastern DRC, where more than 2,000 cases of the highly contagious virus have been recorded, two-thirds of which have been fatal.
**AS AT JUNE 12, 2019
YEAR | LOCATION | CASES | DEATHS | STRAIN |
2000-2001 | Gulu | 425 | 224 | Sudan ebolavarius |
2007-2008 | Bundibugyo | 131 | 42 | Bundibugyo |
2011 | Luwero | 1 | 1 | Sudan |
2012 | Kibaale | 11 | 4 | Sudan |
2012-13 | Luwero, Jinja
& Nakasongola |
6 | 3 | Sudan |
2019 | Kasese | 3 | 1 | Ebola Zaire |
IPL |
#BREAKING: #Uganda on full alert after #Ebola case confirmed https://t.co/B9lLGrQepr pic.twitter.com/jFuVoqWwAv
— The Independent (@UGIndependent) June 11, 2019