An Ebola patient died in western Uganda Tuesday, pushing the death toll from the current outbreak to 30 out of 116 people known to be infected with the lethal virus, the health ministry said.
Health authorities were still registering new infections in Bundibugyo district, home to 250,000 people and the outbreak's epicentre.The US Centers for Disease Control pathogen experts continued to test for the virus that was identified as a new strain of Ebola, which epidemiologists say erupted in September but was identified only in late November.
Hundreds of villagers and medics who had physical contacts with the patients have been put under observation, authorities said.
Spread by body fluids, the blood-born disease was named after a small river in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it was discovered in 1976. It re-emerged in Sudan later the same year.
Other outbreaks have been recorded in Ivory Coast, Gabon and Uganda.
Source-AFP
LIN/P
