Ugandan health officials on Thursday confirmed a case of Ebola in the capital, Kampala, in a nurse who sought care at a number of facilities.
The nurse, a 32-year-old man, died Wednesday at the Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala, after which health officials confirmed the cause was Ebola, the health ministry said. No one else at the hospital — health care worker or patient — has shown signs of Ebola.
So far, officials have identified more than 40 people who had contact with the man, including 30 health workers at the Kampala hospital, 11 family members, and four health care workers at another hospital in Matugga, which is about 20 kilometers outside Kampala. The man also sought help from a traditional healer.
The man was infected with the Sudan strain of Ebola, for which there are no licensed therapeutics or vaccines. There are experimental vaccines for the strain, however, and the Ugandan health ministry said it would start offering vaccines to contacts of the man immediately. It did not specify which vaccine candidates it would be using.
The confirmation of an Ebola case comes at a fragile time in global health. Under the new Trump administration, the U.S. is moving to withdraw from the World Health Organization and has already paused communications with WHO officials, steps that American and international health officials have widely decried and warned threaten global and U.S. health security.
An Ebola outbreak in an urban setting like Kampala raises particular fears of transmission.
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Separately, officials are investigating another possible Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, though that has yet to be confirmed. There is also an outbreak of Marburg fever, caused by a related virus, in Tanzania.
The man in Uganda initially suffered from fever, chest pain, and difficulty breathing for several days, leading him to seek care at a number of hospitals. His infection progressed to the point he was experiencing unexplained bleeding and organ failure.
In 2022, Uganda had an outbreak caused by Ebola Sudan, the country’s first in a decade. There were 164 cases, including 55 deaths. Health officials started testing Ebola Sudan candidate vaccines during that outbreak.
There are approved vaccines for another species of Ebola, the Zaire strain.
