KAMPALA, Oct 14, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Ugandan authorities insist that an outbreak

of Ebola that has killed 19 people across the country has not reached
Kampala, despite a couple testing positive for the virus in the capital.
The World Health Organization says there have been 54 confirmed cases of the
highly contagious viral haemorrhagic fever since the outbreak was first
reported in the central district of Mubende on September 20.

Only one fatal case had been recorded in Kampala, a 45-year-old man who fled
Mubende after a relative died, and sought out the help of a witchdoctor
before travelling to the capital where he died.

Health authorities on Thursday said the man's wife also tested positive for
Ebola shortly after giving birth at a health clinic in Kampala, a city of 1.5
million people.

But despite this new case, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng stressed that
Kampala was still considered Ebola-free because the woman, and her husband,
were exposed to the virus in Mubende.

"I want to state very clearly that this does not mean Kampala has Ebola,"
Aceng told reporters on Thursday.

"Cases that were already listed in Mubende remain cases of Mubende. Unless
Kampala generates its own cases that start within Kampala, we cannot call
that a Kampala case."

Health officials have not commented on the status of the baby born to the
woman who tested positive.

The health workers who attended the birth are under medical observation in an
isolation facility at Kampala's main hospital where they will remain for the
next 21 days, Aceng said.

Ebola is spread through bodily fluids, with common symptoms being fever,
vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea.

Outbreaks are difficult to contain, especially in urban environments.
Life has continued as normal in Kampala, though some schools have introduced
hand washing facilities that became widespread during the coronavirus
pandemic.

President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday ordered traditional healers to stop
treating sick people in a bid to halt the spread of Ebola, and ordered police
to arrest anyone suspected of having contracted the virus who refused to go
into isolation.

Uganda's last recorded fatality from a previous Ebola outbreak was in 2019.

The particular strain now circulating in Uganda is known as the Sudan Ebola
virus, for which there is currently no vaccine.

The WHO says clinical trials could start within weeks on drugs to combat that
strain.