KAMPALA, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Uganda launched a vaccination campaign on Monday to stop the spread of the Sudan Ebola virus disease (SVD), which has so far killed one health worker and left two people hospitalized.

Health workers at Mulago National Referral Hospital in the national capital of Kampala and Mbale Regional Referral Hospital in the eastern city of Mbale will be the first to receive the vaccine, which is in a trial stage, according to the country's Ministry of Health. Family members who got into contact with the index case, the health worker who died on Jan. 29, will also receive the doses.

"The Ministry of Health is on top of the situation. We already have these (contacts) receiving treatments. They have already received the Ebola vaccine," Emmanuel Ainebyoona, spokesperson for the Ugandan Ministry of Health, told Xinhua by telephone.

"We have people under isolation at the treatment center. We also have the health workers who had contact with the index case under quarantine in a designated facility," Ainebyoona added.

According to the ministry, as of Monday, 234 people have been identified as contacts of the index case and are being monitored.

There are no approved treatments or vaccines for the SVD, but early initiation of supportive treatment has been shown to significantly reduce deaths from the infection, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO has donated 2,160 doses of the Ebola trial vaccine to Uganda to evaluate the efficacy of the vaccine in combating the SVD, the eighth outbreak of the deadly disease in the country. Enditem

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