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Local officials first realized they had a problem on Oct. 10, when a health worker rushed back from a visit to his local village to report that people were dying of a disease that seemed to melt the body. A doctor from St. Mary's Hospital in Lacor, just outside Gulu, had noticed the same thing. The Health Ministry immediately set up a task force to identify the killer and stop it. But training and traditions made that job difficult. The first cases admitted to Gulu's two hospitals were put into general wards and treated by doctors and nurses with no proper protection. At least three hospital workers were infected. In part that was because they had no idea what they were dealing with, and in part "because we are used to treating HIV patients without gloves," says Josephine Abur, a nurse at Gulu Referral Hospital. "It isn't nice to touch them with gloves. It hurts their feelings, and people know you can't get AIDS just from touching. But this one--we didn't know."
Once Ebola was identified, Ugandan officials began a campaign to "sensitize" locals about how to avoid infection. They closed schools and isolated patients as best they could. WHO officials and medical supplies began arriving from Europe last week. Because it kills so quickly, leaving victims little time to infect others, Ebola usually burns itself out. So far, 47 people have died in the Ugandan outbreak; an additional 75 are known to have the virus.
Scientists are beginning to understand how Ebola affects the body, and could one day develop a vaccine for it. But no one is any closer to explaining where it comes from and why it suddenly attacks. "What we don't understand is how it lives in nature," says WHO's outbreak coordinator, Mike Ryan. All we know is that the virus is out there, ready to attack another day.