A DEADLY OUTBREAK of the Ebola virus in Uganda appears to now be under control, according to the international medical charity Medecines Sans Frontieres.
There have been 19 confirmed and probable deaths due to the virus since the outbreak, MSF epidemiologist Dr Paul Roddy told the BBC.
Roddy said that while teams were still receiving admissions of individuals that “meet the clinical and epidemiological case definitions”, there had not been a confirmed Ebola death in the past 12 days. The last identified individual with a positive laboratory confirmation was one week ago, he added.
If no further cases are confirmed over the next 42 days, the outbreak could be considered contained.
While there is no known cure for Ebola, patients can be treated with antibiotics and painkillers – and anti-malaria drugs are also used to build resistance.
The recent outbreak started in the town of Kagadi, western Uganda.
There have been three major outbreaks in the country over the past 12 years, the most serious of them occurring in 2000 when 425 people were infected with the virus and over half died.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say