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Reuters
Geneva
- The death toll from Ebola fever in northern Uganda rose
to 60 on Tuesday and the outbreak is expected to continue
for months, the World Health Organization said.
The
deaths in Uganda's Gulu province rose from 55 on Monday
and the number of cases reported also rose to 165 from Monday's
160, Valery Abramov, spokesman for the Geneva-based U.N.
health agency said.
Although
the rate of hospital admissions had stabilized at between
five and 10 patients a day, further waves of the fever were
expected, he said.
``We're
still in the middle of one wave. They (health experts) are
expecting three or four waves which means it could still
go on for another two-and-a-half, if not three months,''
Abramov told a news briefing. There is no known cure for
the hemorrhagic fever, which is spread by human contact
and causes massive internal bleeding.
The
WHO says the incubation period is between two and 21 days.
The
exact origin of the virus and how and why it flares up are
unknown. Symptoms include sudden onset of fever, weakness,
headache, muscle ache, abdominal pain and sore throat, followed
by vomiting, diarrhea and internal and external bleeding.
The
WHO says that before the Uganda outbreak Ebola had claimed
793 lives in nearly 1,100 documented cases since the virus
was discovered in 1976 in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, where an epidemic killed more than 270 people.
The
latest outbreak is the first in Uganda, although Marburg
fever, which has similar characteristics, killed 19 people
there in 1976.
WHO
officials have been unable to say whether the final toll
is likely to match the 245 people who died in the Congolese
town of Kikwit in 1995.
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