Uganda’s Health Minister said Saturday that three people in an isolation unit of the country’s main hospital had tested positive for Ebola.
“Yesterday three individuals from among the 60 in our Mulago isolation facility tested positive for Ebola,” Jane Ruth Aceng said on Twitter.
“They will be transferred to the Entebbe Isolation for treatment Unit since the Mulago Unit still has 58 contacts under quarantine,” she said, referring to a facility 41 km away from the capital.
Friday’s confirmed cases would be the first known transmission of the virus in the capital city, coming on the same day the information ministry said the country’s Ebola outbreak was coming under control and was expected to be over by the end of the year.
A government statement on Friday evening said the outbreak had infected 65 people and killed 27. It was not clear if the numbers included the three new Kampala cases.
Uganda has since effected a three-week lockdown around the Mubende and Kassanda districts in central Uganda, the epicenter of the outbreak of the Sudan variant of the Ebola virus.
The measures include an overnight curfew, restrictions on movement, and the closure of places of worship and entertainment.
