A child dies of Ebola in Uganda, raising concern over disease
surveillance in outbreak
[March 03, 2025]
By RODNEY MUHUMUZA
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — A 4-year-old child became the second person to
die of Ebola in Uganda, the World Health Organization said Saturday, in
a setback for health officials who had hoped for a quick end to the
outbreak that began at the end of January.
The child had been hospitalized at the main referral facility in
Kampala, the capital of the East African country, and died Tuesday, the
WHO office in Uganda said in a brief statement. That statement said WHO
and others are working to strengthen surveillance and contact tracing.
There were no other details about the death and local health officials
were not commenting on the case.
The death undermines Ugandan officials’ assertions of an outbreak under
control after eight Ebola patients were discharged earlier in February.
The first victim was a male nurse who died the day before the outbreak
was declared on Jan. 30. He had sought treatment at multiple facilities
in Kampala and in eastern Uganda, where he also visited a traditional
healer in trying to diagnose his illness, before later dying in Kampala.
The successful treatment of eight patients who had been contacts of that
man, including some of his relatives, had left local health officials
anticipating the end of the outbreak. But they are still investigating
its source.
Tracing contacts is key to stemming the spread of Ebola, and there are
no approved vaccines for the Sudan strain of Ebola that's infecting
people in Uganda.
Over 20,000 travelers are screened daily for Ebola at Uganda’s different
border crossing points, according to WHO, which supports the work.
The WHO has given Uganda at least $3 million to support its Ebola
response, but there have been concerns about adequate funding in the
wake of the U.S. administration’s decision to terminate 60% of USAID’s
foreign aid contracts.
Dithan Kiragga, executive director of the Baylor College of Medicine
Children’s Foundation, a non-governmental group that supports Ebola
surveillance in Uganda, told The Associated Press on Friday that his
group had stopped its work supporting local health authorities in
screening traveling passengers after the termination of its contract
with USAID. The five-year contract, signed in 2022 and worth $27
million, employed 85 full-time staff who were employed in a range of
public health activities, Dr. Kiragga said.
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Rita Ninsiina, ebola survivor, leaving the isolation centre at
Mulago Referral Hospital in Kampala, Uganda Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025.
(AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda)
 Charles Olaro, the director of
health services at Uganda’s Ministry of Health, said that U.S. aid
cuts hurt the work of some non-governmental groups supporting the
response to infectious diseases.
“There are challenges, but we need to adjust to the new reality,”
Dr. Olaro said, speaking of the loss of U.S. funding.
Ebola, which is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of an
infected person or contaminated materials, manifests as a deadly
hemorrhagic fever. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea,
muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.
Scientists suspect the first person infected with Ebola in an
outbreak acquired the virus through contact with an infected animal
or eating its raw meat.
Uganda’s last outbreak, discovered in September 2022, killed at
least 55 people before it was declared over in January 2023.
Ebola in Uganda is the latest in a trend of outbreaks of viral
hemorrhagic fevers in the east African region. Tanzania declared an
outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg disease in January, and in
December, Rwanda announced its own outbreak of Marburg was over.
Uganda has had multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that
killed hundreds. The 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed
more than 11,000 people, the disease’s largest death toll.
Ebola was discovered in 1976 in simultaneous outbreaks in South
Sudan and Congo, where it occurred in a village near the Ebola
River, after which the disease is named.
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