The Wall Street Journal regarding the outbreak of Ebola in Uganda notes:
The outbreak started and spread first within one family, said Rukia Nakamate, a spokeswoman for the Ugandan Ministry of Health. Initially, locals believed the illnesses were the result of an attack of evil spirits rather than one of the deadliest viruses known to man, and took the patients to a Christian religious shrine for prayers, where the first two victims died, she said.
“Some of the victims came into contact with many people, including churchgoers,” she said.
The New York Times article’s author appears to have crafted a dumb-downed rewrite (can we say plagiarism?) of the far more informative WSJ piece and in doing so chose to leave this interesting factoid out (even though it could be germane to the spread of the deadly virus).
