Fears are growing of a major health crisis in East Africa as a girl died of a suspected fever which could be more deadly than the Black Death.
A nine-year-old girl died in central Uganda with the symptoms of an eye-bleeding disease which it is thought could kill up to 40 per cent of those infected by it.
The feared outbreak comes only months after hundreds of people were killed by the plague in Madagascar in what was described as the worst bout for 50 years.
The symptoms of the new disease include headaches, bleeding, vomiting, diarrhoea and muscle pains, according to the Daily Star.
A health team is reported to have rushed to disinfect the girl’s house and put her in a body bag after she died in the Nakaseke District of central Uganda.
A relative of the dead girl said that the family had been left in the dark about burial arrangements while health officials rushed to contain the disease.
Three people were earlier reported to have died in South Sudan last week of a similar viral fever.
The medieval Black Death, caused by the bubonic plague, killed around 100 million people in Europe after reaching the continent in 1347.
The plague has largely vanished in Western countries and can be treated with antibiotics, but still kills a few people every year in the United States.
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