“Yesterday … three individuals from among the 60 in our Mulago isolation facility tested positive for Ebola,” Jane Ruth Aceng said on Twitter.

“They will be transferred to the Entebbe Isolation Unit for treatment since the Mulago Unit still has 58 contacts under quarantine,” she said, referring to a second facility 41km away.

On Friday, Uganda’s information ministry said the Ebola outbreak in Uganda that had infected 65 people and killed 27 was coming under control and was expected to be over by the end of the year.

The government has introduced a three-week lockdown around the Mubende and Kassanda districts in central Uganda, the epicentre of the outbreak of the Sudan variant of the Ebola virus.

The measures include an overnight curfew, restrictions on movement and the closure of places of worship and entertainment.

Aceng said the three infected people had been in contact with a patient from Kassanda who had died in Mulago.