Breaking News: Anthrax Claims Lives of 17 People in Uganda

As reported by AFP on Thursday, a local official said “the situation is under control” after at least 17 people died of anthrax in a southern Ugandan county in November.

Dr. Edward Muwanga, the area’s health officer, told AFP that “17 people died” from anthrax in November in the Kyotera region of southern Uganda, around 180 kilometers from the capital Kampala. They “are suspected of having eaten meat from the farm where the animals had contracted the disease”, he went on to say.

“We are working with teams from the Ministry of Health in Kampala and the World Health Organisation (WHO) who are on the ground to help contain the situation and it is under control,” Mr. Muwanga told reporters.

The Bacillus anthracis bacterium, which has lived in the form of spores for decades in an area where they buried animals who died of anthrax or previously transmitted the illness, is transmissible to humans and possibly lethal in its rarest forms.

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