Ebola spreads to Uganda
This item appears on page 17 of the August 2019 issue.
A 5-year-old boy and his grandmother died of ebola in Uganda on June 12, and it was confirmed that one other family member was infected. It was the first time the disease had been detected outside of the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the current outbreak, which began in August 2018.
All three infected people were Congolese citizens who had traveled to Uganda. Ugandan authorities do not know how the family managed to avoid health screeners when crossing the border.
As of June 29, 2019, there had been 2,231 confirmed cases of ebola in the DRC, resulting in 1,489 deaths. Based on the number of confirmed cases, it is now the second-largest ebola outbreak on record.