By
The Associated Press
GULU, Uganda - An outbreak of the dreaded Ebola virus has claimed at least 35 lives and spread fear in this northern Ugandan town, where officials tried yesterday to educate a largely rural, illiterate population about its dangers.
At least 38 other people were infected with the hemorrhagic fever, which kills 90 percent of its victims and has no known cure.
Parts of Gulu, a small farming town 225 miles north of Kampala, were under quarantine yesterday and residents avoided all contact, even handshakes, for fear of catching the virus.
At the town's Lacor hospital, a mother wearing gloves and a mask held her ailing baby, who doctors said was unlikely to survive.
"My wife bled from the nose ... had bloody diarrhea. This morning she died and I buried her here," said Okot Achala, a resident of Gulu.
The Ugandan ministry of health announced late Saturday that a virus claiming lives in the Gulu area was Ebola, feared for the speed with which it kills and the gruesome nature of its victims' deaths.
The virus is spread through bodily fluids such as saliva or blood. Within four days, flu-like symptoms set in, followed by vomiting and diarrhea. Ten to 15 days later, the victim "bleeds out" through the eyes, nose, ears and other bodily orifices.
The outbreak spread fear throughout Gulu, where garbage men wore elbow-high yellow plastic gloves and surgical masks. In the capital, Kampala, Ebola was the main subject of afternoon radio call-in programs, with residents worried that travelers making the five-hour bus ride from Gulu would bring the disease to the city.
"I am scared. I'm scared the infection will attack my children," said housewife Jessica Ogeti, who helped bury one of the victims in Gulu.
Health authorities were discouraging people from washing clothes or their bodies in common water pools, a widespread custom in rural Gulu, where most people live in mud huts without running water or electricity.
Many residents also ceremonially bathe and bury their dead close to their homes rather than using a cemetery, and health officials were trying to discourage the practice, said T. Zablon, a doctor at Lacor Hospital.
"We are tying our best. We are also emphasizing awareness on how not to contract the disease," Zablon said.
Authorities quarantined three neighborhoods in Gulu's outskirts which they believe are the most affected. Professor Francis Omswa, director general of Uganda's medical services, said the outbreak was mostly restricted to Gulu but two cases have been reported in the neighboring district of Kitgum.
The key to containing the virus, health officials said, was to educate a largely illiterate population on how to avoid catching Ebola.
"We are working with guidelines from the World Health Organization and the ministry of health," said Okot Lokach, district director of health services, adding that they were translating pamphlets on the virus into the local tribal language.
"We are also sketching them so those who read, can read, and those that can't, can see," he said. "Right now we are planning what to do in the field. We have deployed our people ... to mobilize the general public."
Four investigators from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control were to leave for Gulu today to help determine the origin of the outbreak and find ways to contain it, said Barbara Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta-based agency.
Two WHO experts are also in the area to investigate the outbreak and five more are expected to arrive in Uganda today.
In addition, technical assistance and $120,000 had been pledged by international aid organizations to help combat the spread of the virus, Health Minister Crispus Kiyonga said.
Uganda has never before recorded an outbreak of Ebola, but there have been cases of the closely related Marburg virus. Ebola was named after a river in Congo, where it was first detected in 1976.
The last major Ebola outbreak struck Kikwit, Congo, in 1995, and killed 245 people. The last recorded outbreak was in Gabon in February 1997, when 10 people died.
