Uganda: Ebola death toll hits 18

(SomaliNet) As authorities in Uganda struggled put a fresh outbreak of Ebola disease under control, two more patients died from the deadly virus in western Uganda, bringing the toll to 18, a health official said on Saturday.

\"Cumulatively, there are 18 deaths and 61 cases,\" said Sam Zaramba, the country\'s top government physician.

Reports say a total of 19 patients were quarantined in Bundibugyo hospital near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, which itself has had harrowing experience of the virulent disease.

\"Those admitted are mainly health workers and those who attended to the patients,\" Zaramba told reporters.

\"The situation is not yet under control. The main challenge we are facing detecting cases and following up who those who made contacts with the patients,\" Zaramba explained.

Authorities on Friday said the outbreak was an unknown strain after analysis was done on tissue samples at the laboratories of the Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control.

Initial field probes showed the outbreak was ongoing in Bundibugyo district since September, the World Health Organisation said.

On Saturday, Rwandan authorities announced they had tightened border health controls to prevent if from travelling across the frontier from western Uganda.

Ebola is a highly contagious disease that can have fatality rates as high as 90 percent, as there is no vaccine or treatment. The disease spreads mainly through human fluids, notably blood.

An outbreak killed at least 170 people in northern Uganda\'s Gulu district in 2000. Another in recent weeks killed at least 26 people in DR Congo\'s West Kasai region.

The Ebola virus was first identified in 1976 in Sudan and in a nearby region of Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire). Outbreaks of Ebola have also occurred in the Ivory Coast and Gabon.

Since then, experts have said the disease is usually containable because it kills its victims faster that it can spread to new ones.-AFP