KAMPALA The death toll from an outbreak of Ebola fever in Uganda has risen to 129, with 14 deaths since Tuesday and 19 more confirmed cases admitted to hospital, health officials said on Friday.
But tests carried out in Uganda on blood samples from seven Kenyans, who were considered at risk after attending the funeral of a Ugandan Ebola victim, have all proved negative, said Alex Opio, the Ugandan assistant commissioner for national disease control.
The Kenyans had traveled to the central Ugandan town of Masindi after a female relative and three of her family died there from the deadly virus earlier this month.
There had been fears that the epidemic could have spread across the border to Kenya.
The blood samples from the Kenyan visitors were tested at a field laboratory run by experts from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the northern town of Gulu, where Ebola fever appeared in mid-September.
All the deaths since Tuesday have been in Gulu, where 121 people have now died from the hemorrhagic fever, which in past outbreaks has killed between 50 and 90 percent of its victims.
The epidemic has spread to two other districts -- in both cases brought by people traveling from Gulu after coming into contact with sick Ebola patients.
There is no cure for Ebola, which was first recognized in 1976 in former Zaire and neighboring Sudan, where epidemics killed more than 400 people.
Most victims die from shock after days of high fever, chest pains, vomiting and extensive internal bleeding. Doctors can do little except provide supportive rehydration therapy.
(Reuter)