A nurse in Uganda died from Ebola virus, first outbreak since 2022
Kampala (Uganda), Jan 30 (AP): A nurse in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, has died of Ebola, a health official said on Thursday, in the first recorded fatality since the last outbreak ended in 2023.
Diana Atwine, permanent secretary of the health ministry, told reporters on Thursday that the 32-year-old male patient was an employee of Mulago Hospital, the main referral facility in Kampala.
After developing a fever, the patient was treated at several locations in Uganda before multiple lab tests confirmed he had been suffering from Ebola. The patient died on Wednesday, and Ebola was confirmed following postmortem tests, Atwine said.
Health authorities were “in full control of the situation”, she said.
Ebola, which is spread by contact with bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials, manifests as a deadly hemorrhagic fever. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.
At least 44 contacts of the patient have been listed, including 30 health workers and patients at the hospital in Kampala, according to Uganda's Ministry of Health.
Scientists don't know the natural reservoir of Ebola, but they suspect the first person infected in an outbreak acquired the virus through contact with an infected animal or eating its raw meat. Ugandan officials are still investigating the source of the current outbreak.
Uganda has had multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that killed hundreds. The 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people, the disease's largest death toll.
Ebola was discovered in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in South Sudan and Congo, where it occurred in a village near the Ebola River, after which the disease is named.
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ISRO successfully conducts second integrated air drop test for Gaganyaan mission
New Delhi (PTI): Space agency ISRO has successfully conducted the second integrated air drop test (IADT-02) for the upcoming Gaganyaan mission at the space station in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota.
The system is essential to ensure a safe recovery of the crew module -- the capsule in which astronauts sit during a human flight -- during re-entry and landing.
Union minister Jitendra Singh congratulated the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for successfully conducting the test.
"Congratulations #ISRO for the successful accomplishment of Second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) for #Gaganyaan, India's first Human Space flight scheduled next year. The second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) was successfully conducted at Satish Dhawan Space Station Sriharikota," Singh said in a post on X.
The IADT-02 follows the successful completion of the first IADT, which took place on August 24, 2025, at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
Air drop tests recreate the last leg of a spacecraft's return to Earth. An aircraft or helicopter drops the spacecraft from a height to test various systems under different scenarios.
These are the deployment of the parachute system in case the mission is aborted mid-flight, system performance when one parachute fails to open and the spacecraft's orientation and safety during splashdown etc.
In the IADT-02 test, a simulated crew module, weighing about 5.7 tonnes, was lifted by an Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter to an altitude of about three kilometres and released over a designated drop zone in the sea, near the Sriharikota coast.
In a statement, the ISRO said, "Ten parachutes of four types were deployed in a precise sequence during the descent of the crew module, gradually reducing the velocity for safe touchdown. Subsequently, the simulated crew module was successfully recovered in coordination with the Indian Navy."
