Mediaboss Marketing

By Brett Wiles

Monday, July 30, 2012

The Ebola virus has killed 14 people in western Uganda this month, health officials said, ending weeks of speculation about the cause of a strange disease that had many people fleeing their homes.

The officials and a WHO representative told a news conference in Kampala yesterday there is an outbreak of Ebola in the country.

"Laboratory investigations done at the Uganda Virus Research Institute... have confirmed that the strange disease reported in Kibaale is indeed Ebola haemorrhagic fever," the Ugandan government and WHO said in joint statement.

Kibaale is a district in mid-western Uganda, where people in recent weeks have been troubled by a mysterious illness that seemed to come from nowhere. Ugandan health officials had been stumped as well, and spent weeks conducting tests.

On Friday, Joaquim Saweka, the WHO representative in Uganda, told AP that investigators were "not so sure" it was Ebola, and a Ugandan health official dismissed the possibility of Ebola as merely a rumour. It appears firm evidence of Ebola was clinched overnight.

Health officials told reporters in Kampala that the 14 dead were among 20 reported with the disease. Two of the infected have been isolated for examination by researchers and health officials.

A clinical officer and, days later, her four-month-old baby died from the disease caused by the Ebola virus, officials said.

Officials urged Ugandans to be calm, saying a national emergency taskforce had been set up to stop the disease from spreading far and wide.

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Ebola confirmed as killer of 14