The country’s health minister announced on Sunday that an Ebola case had been identified in Jinja in eastern Uganda. This is the first instance in which the outbreak has expanded from central Uganda, where cases have so far been contained, to a new part of the nation.

Since the pandemic was proclaimed on September 20, authorities have struggled to keep the deadly and highly contagious haemorrhagic fever under control.

According to the health ministry, Uganda has so far reported a total of 135 confirmed cases and 53 fatalities.

In a tweet, health minister Jane Ruth Aceng said the case in Jinja was of a 45-year-old man who died on Thursday. A sample that turned positive for Ebola had been obtained from the body by health workers at a private clinic where he had sought treatment.

“Contact tracing and epidemiological investigations have been activated,” Aceng said.

The virus circulating in Uganda is the Sudan strain of Ebola, for which there is no proven vaccine, unlike the more common Zaire strain that spread during recent outbreaks in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ebola generally kills about half of the people it infects.