Uganda discharges the last Ebola patients. No new deaths from the contagious virus reported

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) - Uganda discharged on Tuesday the last eight patients who recovered from Ebola, health authorities reported, and there were no other positive cases in the outbreak declared last month.

World Health Organization described the recoveries as a milestone that "reflects the power of Uganda's quick and coordinated response."

Most of the Ebola patients were treated at the main referral facility in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

The lone Ebola victim was a male nurse who died the day before the outbreak was declared in Kampala on Jan. 30. His relatives are among those later hospitalized with Ebola.

Tracing contacts is key to stemming the spread of Ebola, which manifests as a viral hemorrhagic fever. Ugandan officials documented at least 265 contacts, and at least 90 of them have completed a period of quarantine during which they were monitored for signs of Ebola, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng told reporters in Kampala.

There are no approved vaccines for the Sudan strain of Ebola in Uganda’s outbreak. But authorities have launched a clinical study to further test the safety and efficacy of a trial vaccine as part of measures to stop the spread of Ebola.

The last outbreak of Ebola in Uganda, which began in September 2022, killed at least 55 people by the time it was declared over four months later.

Ebola is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.

Scientists suspect that the first person infected in an Ebola outbreak acquires the virus through contact with an infected animal or eating its raw meat. Ebola was discovered in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in South Sudan and Congo, where it occurred in a village near the Ebola River, after which the disease is named.