A doctor dons protective equipment in Entebbe, Uganda
(Picture: AP)Six schoolchildren in Uganda‘s capital have tested positive for Ebola sparking fears the outbreak of the deadly disease could spread.
The children, who attend three different schools in Kampala, are among at least 15 people in the city confirmed to have been infected.
A health ministry statement said they were all members of a family exposed to the disease by a man who traveled from one Ebola-hit district to Kampala where he died.
It said that “vigilance in contact tracing and field case management” had allowed the authorities to track the cause and they are now “following up” 170 contacts from the children’s schools.
Fears the disease could spread have led to a lockdown with nighttime curfews on two of the five districts reporting cases.
The head of the Uganda Medical Association, Dr Samuel OIedo, urged health authorities to impose a city-wide lockdown in Kampala, a measure the country’s president has previously said he doesn’t want to implement.
Dr Oledo told reporters the situation was alarming because some “people are not even reporting cases” of Ebola which has infected 109 people and killed 30 since September 20, when the outbreak was declared.
Ebola is spread by contact with bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials.
Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and, at times, internal and external bleeding.
There is no proven vaccine for the Sudan strain of Ebola that’s circulating in this East African country of 45 million people. Uganda has had multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that killed more than 200 people.
The 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people, the disease’s largest death toll.
