This archive report was first published on 17 September 2019.
On September 16, 2019, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called on the Tanzanian government to provide transparency in the case of a patient who died after suffering Ebola-like symptoms.
According to an internal World Health Organisation (WHO) document, the 34-year-old woman, a student from central Uganda, died on September 8 and was buried the same day. She had returned to Tanzania on August 22.
Despite reports of one death, the Tanzanian government has refused to provide samples from the deceased for testing or make available other information about the case.
WHO had sent a team to Tanzania to investigate the death of a medical doctor over an unknown illness, with two suspected Ebola cases reported in Mwanza and Dar es Salaam.
As the East African region remains on high alert over the ongoing Ebola outbreak in DR Congo, which has killed 2,500 people and infected 3,000 since August 2018, WHO representative in Uganda, Dr Yonas Woldemariam, emphasized the need for investigation and testing of samples.
