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The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday urged Ugandans and tourists to avoid entering caves with bats in the East African country after a Dutch woman died of Marburg haemorrhagic fever.
The unidentified 40-year-old woman died overnight in Leiden University Medical Centre, Dutch authorities said.
Health experts fear bats in caves and mines in western Uganda are a reservoir for the Marburg virus, a cousin of Ebola. Marburg haemorrhagic fever is a severe and highly fatal disease whose victims often bleed from multiple sites.
People who were in close contact with the victim, who visited two caves during a three-week trip to Uganda that ended on June 28, have been monitored daily but none have shown any symptoms, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said.
"It is an isolated case of imported Marburg. People should not think about amending their travel plans to Uganda but should not go into caves with bats," he said.
In a statement, Uganda's Health Ministry advised people entering caves or mines in the western district of Kamwenge to take "maximum precaution not to get into close contact with the bats and non-human primates in the nearby forests".
There is no vaccine or specific treatment for the contagious disease, spread through contact with blood, semen or other bodily fluids.
The Dutch woman was believed to have had direct contact with a fruit bat in a cave she visited.
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