Kampala: A five-year-old boy who tested positive for Ebola in Uganda has died, a health ministry official said on Wednesday as two of his family members also tested positive for the virus after a visit to neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. The World Health Organisation confirmed on Twitter that Uganda has now recorded three cases of Ebola, in the first spread across the country's porous western border with the DRC where more than 2,000 cases of the highly contagious virus have been registered. Uganda's health ministry said on Tuesday that a woman of Congolese origin, who is married to a Ugandan, had gone with her child and four other family members to take care of her father in the DRC, who later died of Ebola.

"The boy who tested positive for Ebola in Kasese yesterday passed on last night in the isolation unit," a health ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "The minister for health (Ruth Aceng) will be briefing the country about the death of the boy and arrangements to bury the body." The official said the child was likely to be buried on Wednesday. DRC Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga said the family were placed in isolation after being identified as in contact with an Ebola patient. "During the isolation, some family members crossed into Uganda. As soon as they crossed, we contacted the Ugandan authorities," he told AFP in an interview Wednesday. Uganda's health ministry said the family members had been identified and were placed in isolation in Bwera, a town near the border with DRC.