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BRAZZAVILLE. – African countries are on alert, strengthening screening and surveillance after an outbreak linked to a relatively rare strain of Ebola virus broke out earlier this week in Uganda. 

The central African country has reported seven confirmed cases, including one death.

The strain detected is a relatively rare strain, called the Sudan strain, which doesn’t have an approved vaccine that can prevent its spread. It’s been a decade since this strain was reported globally.

Uganda has reported seven confirmed cases, including one death, amid the latest outbreak of the relatively rare Sudan strain of Ebola virus, announced yesterday by Henry Kyobe, incidence commander with Uganda’s Ministry of Health.

Kyobe announced at an online press briefing held by the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, based in Brazzaville, capital of Congo, adding that the epidemic “appears to have started around the beginning of September.”

So far, seven cases, including one death, have been confirmed to have contracted one of the six species of the Ebola virus genus.

Forty-three contacts have been identified and 10 people suspected to have caught the virus are receiving treatment at the Mubende Regional Referral Hospital in the town of Mubende, where the disease was confirmed earlier this week.

It is the first time Uganda has detected the Sudan Ebolavirus since 2012.

Ebola is a severe, often fatal illness affecting humans and other primates. It has six different strains, three of which, Bundibugyo, Sudan, and Zaire, have previously caused large outbreaks. – Xinhua