Ebola death toll in Uganda climbs to nine

The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in Uganda has risen to nine, the health ministry said Friday, two weeks after the authorities announced an epidemic in the centre of the country.

The new toll rose from seven, the figure given on Friday.

Last month the health ministry announced the landlocked nation’s first fatality from the highly contagious virus since 2019, declaring an outbreak in the central district of Mubende.

Ebola is an often-fatal viral haemorrhagic fever named after a river in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where it was discovered in 1976. Read more here.