Uganda’s health minister said a Tanzanian doctor working in Uganda has died from the Ebola virus, becoming the first health worker to die from the disease in the country’s latest outbreak.
“I regret to announce that we have lost our first doctor, Dr. Muhammad Ali, a 37-year-old Tanzanian citizen,” Health Minister Jane Ruth Aseng wrote on social media.
She said Ali tested positive for Ebola on September 26 and died while being treated at a hospital in Fort Portal, a city 300 kilometers west of the capital Kampala.
Authorities in the East African country announced an outbreak of a dangerous disease that causes hemorrhagic fever on September 20, raising fears of a serious health crisis in the country of 45 million people.
There is no vaccine available for the Sudanese strain of Ebola, which is the cause of recent infections in Uganda.
The health ministry said before Ali’s death that the disease had infected 35 people and resulted in the death of seven.
Ali was among six medical workers who fell ill, including doctors, an anesthetist and a medical student.
The Ebola virus is mainly spread through contact with the body fluids of an infected person. Symptoms of a viral illness include, among others, extreme weakness, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, and rash.
Source: El Nashra