Ebola kills 2 doctors in Uganda
2007-12-06 07:22
Kampala - The Ebola virus has killed two doctors in western Uganda, bringing the death toll to 21 of the 91 people infected since the strain first appeared in September, says an official.
"The sad news is that our doctor who was admitted in Mulago died last night and a senior clinic officer who had been in critical condition died this morning," said Samuel Kazinga, district commissioner for Bundibugyo, the epicentre of the new outbreak.
Kampala's Mulago Hospital was the largest in the country. Some health officials had said that a lack of appropriate equipment in Mulago and other hospitals had allowed the virus to spread.
Ebola had infected 91 people so far, the health ministry announced in a statement. Of those still alive, 36 remained in health centres in Bundibugyo and Kyikyo area, the statement said.
The health ministry confirmed the latest fatalities caused by the virulent local strain of Ebola, which killed up to 90% of its victims, mostly by puncturing blood vessels and triggering non-stop hemorrhage.
Hospitals 'unsafe'
Eight pathogen experts from the Atlanta-based Centres for Disease Control (CDC) arrived in the country on Tuesday to help battle the mysterious strain with scant history.
Efforts to isolate suspected patients in the rural district neighbouring the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had failed as many residents feared hospitals were unsafe, authorities had said.
Effectively, this had scuppered efforts to compile exact figures, said officials.
The rare disease, named after a small DRC river, killed at least 170 people in northern Uganda in 2000, with experts blaming poor sanitation and hygiene.
It was first discovered in the DRC in 1976, but other outbreaks had been recorded in Ivory Coast and Gabon.
At the same time the government had deployed health officials to the country's northwestern and northern region to deal with fears of extremely contagious cholera, plague, meningitis and hepatitis outbreaks.