Ebola outbreak spreading

2007-12-02 15:58

Kampala - The Ebola outbreak that has killed 18 people in western Uganda appears to be spreading, officials said on Sunday, as authorities examined a sample taken from a dead patient in the south of the country.

Government officials told AFP that the disease, which flared in September, had spread to three new zones in the impoverished Bundibugyo district near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Virologists were meanwhile examining a sample taken from a suspected victim who died overnight in Mbarara region, 160km southeast of the affected district.

Medics flee

Health officials said several dozen medics and support staff had fled the Bundibugyo when their co-workers became infected with the virus in an outbreak that has already killed 18 people and infected 61.

Virologists were also investigating an isolated patient in the neighbouring Port Portale district as well as the fatality in Mbarara.

"There are fears that the disease has spread," said a top health ministry official, who requested to remain unnamed.

"We are waiting for the results from the samples," he said of the two cases that have spread panic in the east African nation.

The disease, which is fatal in 90% of cases, is spread by contact of body fluids, primarily contamination of blood.

Unknown strain

Meanwhile, epidemiologists and virologists are in Bundibugyo district to try to trace backwards the source of the virus as part of a campaign to avoid future outbreaks.

Authorities say the outbreak was an unknown strain after analysis was done on tissue samples at the laboratories of the Atlanta-based Centre for Disease Control.

Known Ebola sub-types usually attack capillaries and blood vessel linings, draining the body of blood through openings, leaving the patient to die in shock, doctors say.

But the new Uganda subtype, which provokes high fever, kills victims without much loss of blood.

- AFP