Ebola infects 6 schoolkids in Uganda as contagion fear grows

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Six schoolchildren in Uganda’s capital have tested positive for Ebola, the health minister said Wednesday, marking a serious escalation of the outbreak declared just over a month ago.

The children, who attend three different schools in Kampala, are among at least 15 people in the city confirmed to have been infected with Ebola, according to a statement by Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng.

The children are members of a family exposed to the disease by a man who traveled from one Ebola-hit district and sought treatment in Kampala, the statement said.

Authorities are “following up” 170 contacts from the schools attended by the six children, it said.

Ebola, which manifests as a viral hemorrhagic fever, has infected 109 people and killed 30 since Sept. 20, when the outbreak was declared several days after the disease began spreading in a rural community in central Uganda.

Ugandan health officials in the district of Mubende, the epicenter, were not quick to confirm Ebola partly because the disease’s symptoms can mimic those of the more prevalent malaria.

There is no proven vaccine for the Sudan strain of Ebola that’s circulating in this East African country of 45 million people.