Ebola Outbreak in Uganda Kills 14
The deadly virus has struck in the western part of the country and may have reached the capital.
| Posted Saturday, July 28, 2012, at 4:40 PM
Photo by CARLOS PALMA/AFP/Getty Images
The Ebola virus has killed 14 people in western Uganda this month with health officials and a World Health Organization representative warning there is “an outbreak of Ebola” in the country, reports the Associated Press. The confirmation ends weeks of speculation about the mysterious illness that struck people in the mid-western district of Kibaale. Health experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also at the scene.
There is widespread speculation the virus may have already spread to the capital as officials are currently investigating a suspicious infection at a Kampala hospital, reports the BBC.
The strain of the virus is Ebola Sudan, one of its more common strains that in recent years “has killed at a rate often above 70 percent of those infected,” notes the New York Times. There is no cure or vaccine for the virus that killed 224 people in Uganda in 2000.
