A 32-year-old man died Wednesday from the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus in Uganda’s capital of Kampala. More than 40 close contacts of the victim were placed under observation as officials sounded the alarm in the densely populated capital and regional travel hub of more than 4 million.
The strain is one of four Ebola viruses that give rise to Ebola virus disease, a hemorrhagic fever transmitted through direct contact with bodily fluids with an average 50% fatality rate. Symptoms begin with fever and sore throat and can culminate in internal bleeding and organ failure. There is currently no vaccine for the Sudan strain, though some are in development.
The East African country has seen at least eight Ebola outbreaks over the last three decades, the deadliest of which came in 2000, when 224 people died. The strain’s cousin, the Zaire ebolavirus, claimed more than 11,000 lives in an outbreak in West Africa between 2013 and 2016. See a map of outbreaks since 1976
