Ebola outbreak kills 16 in Uganda

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Uganda's hospitals are preparing to combat one of the world's deadliest diseases after an outbreak of the Ebola virus killed 16 people.

No cure has yet been found for Ebola, which originated in the rainforests of the Congo basin. Victims suffer diarrhoea, vomiting and heavy bleeding, causing blood to emerge from every orifice.

The last outbreak occurred seven years ago and killed at least 140 people. The World Health Organisation declared Uganda to be free of Ebola in 2001.

Some 51 people in the western district of Bundibugyo are now confirmed to be suffering from Ebola and another 16 have died.

The outbreak probably began three months ago. An accurate diagnosis was delayed because this strain of Ebola differs from the one that Uganda encountered in 2000.

While the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Gordon Brown and about 50 other leaders attended a Commonwealth summit in Uganda last weekend, an Ebola outbreak was taking place only a few hours' drive away.

Bundibugyo is a thickly forested area on the edge of the Congo basin, 250 miles west of the capital, Kampala, where President Yoweri Museveni hosted the summit.

Uganda's health authorities were unable to confirm the presence of the virus, and samples had to be sent to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in America, causing the diagnosis to be delayed.

"That makes it harder for us to control this outbreak," said Dr Moses Walakira from Virika Hospital in Fort Portal, the western district neighbouring the centre of the outbreak.

"We don't know how many contacts there have been with those who are infected. The first task is to trace all those contacts so they can be isolated and treated."

The slightest contact with an infected person can spread the virus. Doctors treating Ebola patients must wear full protective clothing, which is washed and disinfected after use.

Even so, the risks taken by medical personnel are still high. Uganda's last Ebola outbreak killed a doctor, Matthew Lukwiya, who had devoted himself to treating the victims. His heroism in Lacor Hospital in northern Uganda was later the subject of a BBC radio drama.

Dr Walakira said that his hospital was "preparing" to receive Ebola cases.

"People have to be prevented from getting this disease because there is no specific treatment for it. There is a great fear and stigma attached to the Ebola Virus," he said.

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