Ebola kills nurse in Uganda’s capital Kampala, first death from virus since last outbreak ended in 2023

Kampala, Uganda — A nurse in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, has died of Ebola, a health official said Thursday, in the first recorded fatality since the last outbreak ended in 2023. Diana Atwine, permanent secretary of the health ministry, told reporters the 32-year-old male patient was an employee of Mulago Hospital, the main referral facility in Kampala.

After developing a fever, the patient was treated at several locations in Uganda before multiple lab tests confirmed he had been suffering from Ebola. The patient died on Wednesday, and Ebola was confirmed following postmortem tests, Atwine said.

Health authorities were “in full control of the situation,” she said.

Ebola, which is spread by contact with bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials, manifests as a deadly hemorrhagic fever. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.

At least 44 contacts of the patient have been listed, including 30 health workers and patients at the hospital in Kampala, according to Uganda’s Ministry of Health.

Scientists don’t know the natural reservoir of Ebola, but they suspect the first person infected in an outbreak acquired the virus through contact with an infected animal or eating its raw meat. Ugandan officials are still investigating the source of the current outbreak.

Uganda has had multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that killed hundreds. A 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people, the disease’s largest death toll.

Ebola was discovered in 1976 amid two simultaneous outbreaks in South Sudan and Congo, where it occurred in a village near the Ebola River, after which the disease is named.