Uganda reports second Ebola death, a 4-year-old child: WHO

A second Ebola patient, a four-year-old child, has died in Uganda, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says, citing the country’s health ministry.

The fatality brings the number of confirmed cases in Uganda to 10.

The East African country declared an outbreak of the highly infectious and often fatal haemorrhagic disease in January after the death of a male nurse at the Mulago National Referral Hospital in the capital Kampala.

The WHO's Uganda office posted late on Saturday on X that the ministry had reported "an additional positive case in Mulago hospital of a four-and-a-half-year-old child, who tragically passed away" on Tuesday.

Mulago is the country's sole national referral hospital for Ebola cases.

The ministry said on February 18 that all eight Ebola patients under care had been discharged but that at least 265 contacts remained under strict quarantine in Kampala and two other cities.

Ebola symptoms include fever, headache and muscle pains. The virus is transmitted through contact with infected bodily fluids and tissue.