Kampala, Feb 14 (IANS): Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced the release of additional $2 million to support Uganda's effort to fight the ongoing Ebola outbreak, bringing the total funding to $3 million in three weeks.

In a post on X social media platform, Ghebreyesus said the funds would further support the East African country's response to the outbreak. "Our teams are supporting surveillance, laboratories, logistics, infection prevention and control in hospitals, treatment centers and research," he said.

On January 30, the WHO released $1 million and mobilised trial vaccines to support Uganda's national health authorities to contain and end the new wave of Ebola outbreak.

Uganda last month declared an Ebola outbreak after a 32-year-old male nurse working at the Mulago National Referral Hospital in the capital of Kampala succumbed to the disease, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to Uganda's Ministry of Health, as of Wednesday, the country has registered nine laboratory-confirmed Ebola virus infections, including one death, and at least 265 contacts of the first case are being monitored.

Ebola is a type of viral hemorrhagic fever caused by several species of viruses from the genus Ebolavirus. Symptoms of Ebola start out flu-like but can progress to severe vomiting, bleeding and neurological (brain and nerve) issues.

Ebola can spread to people from bats, nonhuman primates and antelope. From there it can spread from human to human and cause outbreaks (where large numbers of people get infected around the same time). Outbreaks mostly happen in parts of Africa.

Ebola is rare. But outbreaks of Ebola disease have happened regularly since ebolaviruses were first recognized in 1976 in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). Most outbreaks are caused by Zaire ebolavirus and Sudan ebolavirus.

The largest Ebola outbreak was the 2014-2016 outbreak of Zaire ebolavirus. In total, there were 28,646 cases and 11,323 deaths reported in 10 countries.