Ebola has officially spread beyond Congo as a 5-year-old boy dies of the disease in Uganda

A 5-year-old boy has died of Ebola in Uganda, marking the first death from the disease outside of the Democratic Republic of Congo in a nearly year-long outbreak.

Nearly 1,400 people have died in Congo since the disease first sprouted last August, and the World Health Organization has worked ever since to contain it within the country. But the 5-year-old's case has changed the game, leaving the WHO poised to declare the disease a global health emergency just like it was during 2014's outbreak, The Associated Press reports.

More than 2,000 people have been diagnosed with Ebola during the 10-month-long outbreak in Congo. The boy who marked the first case outside of Congo had traveled with his family to Uganda on Monday, and was taken to a hospital after he began showing symptoms for the disease, per The Guardian. His 3-year-old brother and 50-year-old grandmother have since been diagnosed with Ebola, and while the rest of his family was supposed to be put in isolation at the hospital, "six managed to leave while awaiting transfer to an Ebola treatment center," AP says. It's unclear how the boy's family got across the border after being exposed to the virus, but authorities are looking into it.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

It's been especially hard to fight the disease as militias attack Ebola treatment centers and people fear health care workers are "part of a Western plot," The Wall Street Journal reports. The WHO's Ebola committee has been told they may convene for a meeting to decide whether to declare a global health emergency, a spokesperson told AP.