Health workers treating an Ebola suspect at the Masaka Regional Referral Hospital say the patient escaped from isolation in Mubende.
The male patient collapsed at the Masaka health facility on Monday where he had gone for treatment. After recuperating, he told health workers that he escaped from Mubende referral hospital with three other suspects.
According to Doctor Edwin Okello, the in-charge of the Epidemiology Ward in Masaka, the suspect and two other colleagues fled the isolation unit where they were placed for monitoring as contacts to a confirmed case.
Dr. Okello says they boarded a taxi plying the Mubende-Sembabule-Masaka road to the town and went in separate directions.
Okello says the facility has since sent his samples and those from five other suspected cases to the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe for further analysis.
We now call upon the communities to be extra vigilant and report any unusual symptoms to the health authorities such that our teams can respond to them.
— Edwin Okello says.
Last week, hospital authorities in Mubende revealed that seven suspected cases placed under isolation had escaped from the referral hospital to unknown destinations.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, a health worker in Kagadi with symptoms of the deadly disease died at St. Ambrose Charity Health Center IV
Keefa Madira, the senior Clinical officer at Kagadi Hospital who doubles as the head of Ebola case management in Kagadi said that the deceased has been a Health Care Worker attached to one of the private clinics in Kakumiro district.
According to Madira, the deceased traveled to Mubende district and returned to Rugashali town council in Kagadi. He says the deceased was bleeding from the mouth and nose, had a high fever, severe headache, muscle and joint pain, diarrhea, and vomiting.
According to the Ministry of Health, Uganda has an overall Ebola death toll of 23 while the cumulative cases stand at 36, including confirmed probable cases, that have been recorded the outbreak of the viral hemorrhagic fever was declared in Mubende district on September 20th.
Ebola presents with high body temperatures, fatigue, chest pain, diarrhea, vomiting, unexplained bleeding, and yellowing of the eyes.
It spreads through contact with the blood, stool, or fluids of an infected person and objects that have been contaminated with body fluids from an infected person.
One can also contract the disease through contact with blood, secretions, organs, or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as fruit bats and other wild animals.
