A Ugandan man tasked with guarding a Marburg virus-infected mine crept into the underground cove only to be infected with the Ebola-like disease, health officials said on Tuesday.
The mine was closed when the epidemic struck the western area situated in a forest reserve, killing one person, but the 58 miners were monitored by the health Ministry, as were the people with whom they had come in contact.
The epidemic was declared over in early August, but Health Ministry officials said that a man who was guarding the closed mine ”sneaked” in, contracting the disease, and that he is currently under treatment.
”The mine was closed but one person, purportedly guarding the mine, sneaked in quietly and got the problem. We have taken his contacts and tracking down all the other people who may have come to him,” said Paul Kaggwa, the ministry’s spokesperson.
Authorities believe the virus might have been transmitted from the hundreds of thousands of bats dwelling in the scores of tunnels of the mines or from monkeys in a government forest reserve where the mines are situated.
The Marburg virus, which is similar to but less virulent than Ebola, was isolated in 1967 in Germany’s Marburg Virus Institute from monkeys that were imported from Uganda.
An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed six people since April. — Sapa-dpa