Uganda Ebola death toll rises to four

Three more Ebola patients have died in Uganda, the health ministry said on Friday, bringing the total death toll to four, days after authorities confirmed an outbreak of a strain of the deadly disease for which no vaccine has yet been approved.

Uganda’s health ministry said it had confirmed 11 cases of Ebola in total, including the four deaths.

The current outbreak, attributed to the Ebola Sudan strain, appears to have started in a small village in Mubende district around the beginning of September, authorities say.

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Seven other deaths are being investigated for being linked to the outbreak in Mubende, around 130 km west of the capital Kampala.

The first casualty was a 24-year old man who died earlier this week.

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The World Health Organization says the Ebola Sudan strain is less transmissible and has shown a lower fatality rate in previous outbreaks than Ebola Zaire, a strain that killed nearly 2,300 people in the 2018-2020 epidemic in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.