Video of Uganda’s health minister on Marburg outbreak in 2017, not 2024

In October 2024, Ugandan officials said the country was on high alert to prevent the spread of Marburg virus disease (MVD) following an outbreak in neighbouring Rwanda. A video shared on TikTok two months later purported to show Uganda’s health minister announcing that the virus had crossed the border, after all. But AFP Fact Check found the clip is misleading: the footage is from 2017 when the East African country last experienced an outbreak of the disease.

“The rumoured Marburg Virus outbreak in Uganda and a possible lock down in the long run (sic),” reads a text overlay on the video shared on December 18, 2024.

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Screenshot of the misleading post, taken on January 20, 2025

Speaking in the video is Uganda’s Health Minister Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng (archived here).

“I would like to inform the general public that the number of cumulative cases currently stands at two. One confirmed and one probable case. Two health workers who treated the confirmed case at Kapchorwa hospital developed Marburg-like symptoms, and blood samples were taken off and sent to the Ugandan virus research institute for testing,” she says.

“Meanwhile, the health workers were isolated and were being monitored. Today...we received results of one of the health workers and it is negative. We still await the result of the second health worker.”

Marburg virus disease

MVD is a rare but severe viral haemorrhagic fever which affects humans and other primates like apes and monkeys. It is transmitted from infected Egyptian fruit bats and spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person and contaminated objects (archived here).

Early symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches and rash.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), outbreaks and sporadic cases have been reported in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Uganda, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Tanzania (archived here).

Uganda was on high alert in October 2024 following an MVD outbreak in Rwanda the month before. At least six people died (archived here and here).

As AFP reported, the WHO declared the Rwanda outbreak over in December 2024 (archived here).

Old video

Using keywords from the clip, AFP Fact Check found that the footage shared in the misleading post is from an address Aceng gave in 2017.

Ugandan broadcaster UBC published an extended version of the speech on October 24, 2017 (archived here).

The country’s health ministry announced one confirmed case and was following up on 155 contacts of MVD in the districts of Kapchorwa and Kween in eastern Uganda. 

The WHO declared an end to the outbreak on December 8, 2017, after 42 days passed without recording a new case (archived here).

In January 2025, Uganda said it had strengthened its surveillance and screening systems at border points following an MVD outbreak in neighbouring Tanzania (archived here).

No MVD cases have been recorded in Uganda as of the date of publishing this article, and there has been no announcement of an imminent lockdown from the country’s health authorities.

Tanzania confirmed a new MVD outbreak on January 20, 2025, the second in the country since March 2023 (archived here and here).

AFP Fact Check contacted the WHO and will update this article accordingly.