Uganda: Ebola Kills Dr. Lukwiya

6 December 2000

Kampala — Dr. Matthew Lukwiya, the Medical Superintendent of Lacor Hospital, is dead. He contracted the deadly Ebola virus from his patients. Lukwiya, who has been spearheading the battle against Ebola, died at 1.20am yesterday morning despite an intensive five-day supportive treatment by Ugandan doctors, American and WHO experts.

Doctors said prior to his death, Lukwiya bled from the lungs and breathed with difficulty, prompting them to put him on an oxygen supply machine. He was buried in the hospital cemetery in the afternoon, next to the grave of Dr. Lucille Corti who contracted HIV while treating patients in the same hospital. Lukwiya, 43, is survived by a wife and five children. Relatives and friends are holding a requiem service at the All Saints Cathedral today at 2.00 pm. The Minister of Health, Dr. Cryspus Kiyonga, and the Director General of Health Services, Prof. Francis Omaswa, yesterday flew to Gulu in a Police helicopter to attend the burial and talk to medical workers in Gulu. Dr. Ray Arthur, the WHO Ebola coordinator in Gulu, told Reuters that Lukwiya possibly had a little protection lapse. "Ebola virus is not very forgiving. One little mistake is enough to infect an individual," Arthur said. According to health ministry officials, Lukwiya became the 14th medical worker and the 156th person to die of Ebola since it broke out in September.

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