KAMPALA (Reuters)
- A Ugandan woman unwittingly spread the deadly Ebola epidemic
after fleeing a hospital at the center of the outbreak in a desperate
attempt to escape the virus, officials said on Monday.
The unnamed
patient had been receiving treatment for a different illness in
St Mary's Hospital at Lacor, close to the town of Gulu.
"When
she learned there was Ebola in Lacor, she ran away," said
Sam Okware, Uganda's commissioner for health services.
But it now
appears she was already infected with Ebola -- which in many cases
leads to massive internal bleeding, shock, and eventually death.
There is no known cure for the disease which has killed at least
109 people in the latest outbreak.
The woman
died and unknowingly passed Ebola to relatives in her home village
in Masindi district, 120 km (75 miles) south of Gulu. The virus
spreads through direct contact with an infected person.
"Her
daughter and another dependant in the house also died, and the
husband of the daughter is now in hospital," Okware said.
Ebola experts
from the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
confirmed that blood samples from the woman's son-in-law had tested
positive for Ebola. He has been isolated in hospital near his
home village.
Health ministry
officials and staff from the World Health Organization (WHO) and
aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres traveled to Masindi on Monday.
"They
want to get all the contacts -- all the people at the burials,
those that had cared for them," Okware said.
The outbreak
began early in October and spread late last month to the southern
commercial town of Mbarara, where four people have died. Nineteen
new suspected cases have been admitted to hospitals in Gulu since
Friday.
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