Kampala (AFP) - Ugandan health
officials on Tuesday declared the country free of the Ebola-like Marburg
virus after completing a 42-day surveillance period under World Health
Organization (WHO) rules.
"The
country is officially declared free of the Marburg virus epidemic,"
senior health ministry official Sarah Achieng Opendi said in a
statement.
A 30-year-old
medical technician died from Marburg on September 28, 11 days after
falling ill in a Kampala hospital where he worked, sparking alarm.
A total of 197 people were monitored, including eight who had symptoms, but none had the virus.
"Since
then, there have been no Marburg cases reported in the country, this
implies that the Marburg outbreak in the country has completely been
controlled," Opendi added.
The
Marburg virus is one of the most deadly known pathogens. Like Ebola, it
causes severe bleeding, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea and has a 21-day
incubation period.
Like Ebola, the Marburg virus is also transmitted via contact with bodily fluids and fatality rates range from 25 to 80 percent.
The Ebola outbreak has claimed almost 5,000 lives in west Africa since the beginning of the year.
A Marburg outbreak in Uganda in October 2012 killed 10 people.