Uganda has 101 Ebola cases and 350 more at risk

KAMPALA - Uganda now has 101 suspected cases of the lethal Ebola virus and 350 more people are being closely monitored because they were in contact with those infected, the Health Ministry said on Friday.

There were no new deaths from the virulent haemorrhagic fever, which usually causes victims to die of bleeding through various orifices, Health Ministry Spokesman Paul Kabwa said.

Twenty two people have so far died of the fever.

"Cumulatively, we have got 101 cases of Ebola -- those who fit the case definition," Kabwa said, adding that all were in western Uganda's Bundibugyo district, except for two in Kampala, including a doctor who died.

He said 39 had been admitted to hospital in serious condition and 350 others suspected of having been exposed to the virus were being urged to stay at home.

"They are being observed because they are possible contacts with Ebola cases," Kabwa said. "They are not being confined."

The outbreak, which started in August, has sparked panic amongst officials, health workers and the public.

"A bigger Ebola bomb could explode, claiming many more lives," Bundibugyo district chairman Jackson Bambalira was quoted as saying in the state-owned New Vision daily on Friday.

Bundibugyo borders Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose Ebola river gave the virus its name after some of the first cases were recorded in its valley in 1976.

The independent Daily Monitor said Congo had sealed the border with the district. Congolese officials denied this.

"We have not closed the border," Congolese Health Ministry official Dr Benoit Kabela told Reuters by telephone from Kinshasa. "We have just informed people in the region they need to be vigilant."

Kabela said the local population in neighbouring eastern Congo had been sensitised about the risk while medical staff had been deployed and given protective gear as a precaution.

Neighbours Kenya, to the east, and Rwanda, to the southwest, are screening travellers entering from Uganda.

The four-month delay between the start of the outbreak and confirmation last week that it was Ebola has raised suspicions the government covered it up so as not to scare delegates -- Britain's Queen Elizabeth and 53 heads of government -- who met in Kampala two weeks ago for a Commonwealth summit.

The government denies it withheld information. It says it took time for test results to come back from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States.

Commentators have criticised the government's response as sluggish and say Uganda should have learned from an Ebola outbreak in 2000, when 425 people caught it and over half died.

Uganda's medical workers union have called on staff to refuse to care for patients unless they have proper protective gear, following the death of four medical staff.