Uganda on Thursday said it had contained an outbreak of the deadly haemorrhagic Marburg fever detected last week after it killed one person.
"The outbreak is over, but we will stay vigilant in the next days," Health Minister Steven Malinga told a press conference.The victim, a 29-year-old miner died on July 14 one week after being infected, but the disease was only diagnosed last week. Another person who had exhibited symptoms of the disease has since left hospital.
Around 40 people, working at Kitanga gold mine near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and where the disease erupted, have been quarantined.
The disease takes its name from the German town of Marburg, where it was first detected, in 1967, among lab workers who were infected by monkeys from Uganda.
It spreads through contact with blood, excrement, vomit, saliva, sweat and tears. The natural reservoirs for Marburg, and its notorious cousin Ebola, are in the African tropical forest, but the precise animal source remains unknown.
Source-AFP
LIN/J
