Another health worker, who also owned and run a private health facility, has succumbed to the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), reports coming from Mubende, the epicentre district of the viral haemorrhagic disease, have indicated.
Uganda’s Ministry of Health (MoH) ordered an outbreak of the EVD in Uganda after cases were recorded in the District of Mubende.
Ebola has since spread to other districts such as Kassanda, Kyegegwa, Kagadi and Bunyangabu.
The disease has claimed the lives of 20 people, including health workers.
Dr John Grace Walugembe has become the fifth health worker to succumb to the disease. (See names of other health workers killed by Ebola in Uganda Here).
Dr Walugembe was pronounced death on the night of Sunday, October 16, 2022.
Mubende had been receiving treatment at the Mubende Regional Referral Hospital.
He owned Life Care Medical Centre in Mubende Municipality’s South Division in an area called Kirungi.
Dr Walugembe also worked at the Mubende Regional Referral Hospital as a laboratory technician.
The health worker is said to have contracted Ebola from a woman who was treated at his Life Care Clinic. The woman, whom Walugembe had attended to, later succumbed to Ebola. She had presented symptoms and signs such as bleeding from the mouth and nose before being pronounced dead on October 09.
Consequently, members of the Mubende District Ebola Taskforce and health surveillance teams closed Walugembe’s Life Care Clinic before testing him for Ebola. He tested positive for EVD and was admitted at the Mubende Regional Referral Hospital.
This health worker’s death came a day after President Yoweri Museveni placed Mubende and Kassanda districts under an Ebola lockdown. Museveni also issued about 24 directives for the two districts. (Read the 24 Ebola prevention directives and Museveni’s full address Here).
