Over 60 health workers in central Uganda are being monitored after the deadly Marburg hemorrhagic fever broke out in the East African country, a senior health official said Sunday.

Elioda Tumwesigye, minister of state for health who announced the outbreak here on Sunday said that the health workers interacted with the index case which died on Sept. 28.

The index case was a health worker who worked at Mengo Hospital in the capital Kampala and at a health center in Mpigi district, all in central Uganda.

The minister said 38 health workers are being monitored at Mengo Hospital while 22 others are monitored at a health center in Mpigi.

Tumwesigye said 20 other people who were involved in the burial process of the deceased are also being monitored in Kasese district in western Uganda.

He said World Health Organization (WHO) has provided technical and logistical support to contain the disease.

The Marburg virus was last reported in Uganda in 2012. According to the WHO, Marburg is a severe and highly fatal disease caused by a virus from the same family as the one that causes Ebola hemorrhagic fever.

According to the global health body, the illness caused by Marburg virus begins abruptly, with severe headache and malaise.

Case fatality rates have varied greatly, from 25 percent in the initial laboratory-associated outbreak in 1967, to more than 80 percent in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1998-2000, to even higher in the outbreak that began in Angola in late 2004. Endi

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