KAMPALA, UGANDA — Uganda has officially declared the end of its most recent Ebola outbreak on Saturday, April 27, 2025, three months after authorities confirmed cases of the highly contagious and often fatal viral hemorrhagic fever in the capital city of Kampala.
The East African nation announced the outbreak on January 30th following the death of a male nurse who tested positive for the virus. “Good news! The current Ebola Sudan Virus Disease outbreak has officially come to an end,” the Ministry of Health announced in a post on the X platform.
The ministry further stated that the declaration followed a period of 42 days “without a new case since the last confirmed patient was discharged.”
The post did not provide the final total number of cases recorded during this particular outbreak. However, in early March 2025, the last time the ministry reported on the caseload, it indicated that at least ten cases had been confirmed, resulting in two deaths.
Ebola infections are relatively frequent in Uganda, a country with extensive tropical forests that serve as natural reservoirs for the virus.
This latest outbreak, caused by the Sudan strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is no approved vaccine, marked Uganda’s ninth such occurrence since the country recorded its first infection in the year 2000.
Uganda also shares a border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a nation that has experienced over a dozen Ebola outbreaks, including a significant one between 2018 and 2020 that resulted in nearly 2,300 fatalities.
The recent outbreak originated in Kampala, a densely populated city of approximately four million people and a major transportation hub with routes extending to eastern Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Sudan.
Despite the recurring nature of Ebola outbreaks in the country, health experts commend Uganda’s ability to effectively leverage its accumulated experience in combating the disease over the years, enabling them to bring outbreaks under control relatively swiftly.
Ebola is transmitted through direct contact with the infected bodily fluids and tissues of individuals who are sick or have died from the disease. Symptoms typically include headache, vomiting of blood, muscle pain, and hemorrhage.
