
Today on X, Ugandan health ministers confirmed an outbreak of Sudan virus, which belongs to the Ebola virus family, and the World Health Organization (WHO) said it is deploying senior public health experts and staff from the country office to support the response.
It is the country's first Ebola outbreak in 2 years and the ninth outbreak of the virus, with five in Uganda and three in Sudan.
Ugandan officials said the index patient is a 32-year-old man who worked as a nurse at Mulago National Referral Hospital in the capital city of Kampala and died after seeking care at multiple facilities. "Our rapid response teams are fully deployed, contact tracing is under way, and all necessary measures are in place to contain the situation," Diana Atwine, MBChB, secretary of the Ugandan Ministry of Health, wrote on X. "We assure the public that we are in full control."
WHO preparing to deploy supplies
Forty-five contacts of the index patient, including family members and 35 healthcare workers, none of whom have reported symptoms, are being monitored. The WHO said it has allocated $1 million from its Contingency Fund for Emergencies to accelerate the response and is preparing supplies such as personal protective equipment to transport from its Emergency Response Hub in Nairobi, Kenya, to Uganda.