Ebola kills doctor in Uganda, first health worker to die in recent outbreak

Kampala, October 1, 2010 (FBC) A Tanzanian doctor who contracted Ebola in Uganda has died, Uganda’s Minister of Health announced on Saturday.

“I am saddened to announce the loss of our first doctor, Dr. Mohamed Ali, a Tanzanian national, a 37-year-old man,” Health Minister Jane Ruth Asseng tweeted.

On September 26, Ali revealed that he contracted Ebola and died while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Fort Portal, 300 kilometers west of the capital, Kampala.

Authorities in the East African country announced an outbreak of deadly hemorrhagic fever on September 20, posing a major health crisis in the country of 45 million people.

Behind the recent Ugandan infections, there is no vaccine for the Sudanese strain of the disease.

Before Ali’s death, the disease had infected 35 people and killed seven, the Ministry of Health said on Friday.

Ali was among the six health professionals who were infected, including doctors, an anesthesiologist and a medical student.

Ebola is primarily transmitted through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person. Symptoms of the virus include severe weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea and rash.

The report by Elias Biriyabarema; Edited by Kirsten Donovan

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