A five-year-old boy in Uganda has died of Ebola and his grandmother and younger brother also tested positive for the virus after joining the child on a visit to neighbouring DR Congo.
Health Minister Ruth Aceng said Uganda had now recorded three cases of Ebola. It marks the first known cross-border spread in an epidemic that began in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) last August. More than 2,000 cases have been recorded there, around two-thirds of them fatal.
Uganda’s health ministry said on Tuesday that a woman of Congolese origin, who is married to a Ugandan, had gone to the DRC with her mother, two children and one other family member to take care of her father, who later died of Ebola.
Upon their return to Uganda, the five-year-old boy was vomiting blood and taken to hospital, and lab tests revealed he had contracted the haemorrhagic virus. The family were quarantined, Aceng said. Blood tests later confirmed the boy’s three-year-old brother and 50-year-old grandmother also had Ebola.
“We have three cases of Ebola confirmed. Unfortunately, we lost the boy who was first tested and was found positive,” Aceng said. “We have put all those that got in contact with the boy in isolation ward for monitoring.” The child was buried late yesterday in Kasese, in Uganda’s west, health ministry spokeswoman Emma Ainebyoona told AFP.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has said an expert committee will meet tomorrow to discuss whether to declare the Ebola outbreak a global health emergency. This is the third time the committee is meeting on the current Ebola outbreak, which has killed nearly 1,400 people since it was declared in August. The World Health Organization has advised against travel restrictions.
Eight other people in contact with the Ugandan family had been tracked down and were being monitored.