UN: New Subtype of Ebola Virus in Uganda
Pastor Dale Morgan
UN: New Subtype of Ebola Virus in Uganda*
AP
GENEVA - A new form of the deadly Ebola virus has been detected in an
outbreak in western Uganda that has so far killed 16 people, the World
Health Organization said Friday.
Tests conducted by a national lab in Uganda and confirmed by the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control indicate that the virus belongs to a
different subtype than the four already known, said WHO spokesman
Gregory Hartl.
Dr. Sam Zaramba, director general of Uganda's health service, had said
Thursday that laboratory tests in South Africa and the U.S. had
confirmed 51 Ebola cases, and of those 16 patients died.
The first case was reported on Nov. 10 in Bundibugyo district, 200 miles
west of the capital, Kampala, Zaramba said.
Ebola typically kills most of those it strikes through massive blood
loss, and has no cure or treatment. It is spread through direct contact
with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have
been contaminated with infected secretions.
Uganda last had an outbreak of Ebola in October 2000 when 173 people
died and a total of 426 people were diagnosed with Ebola in northern Uganda.
In neighboring Congo, WHO and Congolese officials said last week an
Ebola outbreak that killed six people had been contained.
The World Health Organization says more than 1,000 people have died of
Ebola since the virus was first identified in 1976 in Sudan and Congo.
Primates, hunted by many central Africans for food, can carry the virus.