Update: According to USAToday , Ugandan Officials and WHO representatives report that the illness is Ebola.
Sixteen people are reported dead in Uganda from a mystery illness.
The Uganda publication UG Pulse reports that a strange illness, cause unknown, is spreading in the Kibaale district in western Uganda. The District Health Officer, Dr. Dan Kyamanwa, stated that 11 of the deaths were from the same family in the Nyamarunda Sub County. A twelfth death was a health officer. There are also reports of the illness appearing in the clinical officer who treated the family from Nyamarunda and a driver who transported the deceased.
Kyamanwa says that symptoms of the illness include high fever, vomiting, diarrhea and systems failure. Death occurs within four to seven days.
According to moderators at ProMED, this undiagnosed disease shares some similarities with Bundibugyo hemorrhagic fever, which was first identified in western Uganda in 2007.
The Ugandan government is reportedly sending a team of experts to investigate the outbreak.
Further information is awaited.
