Mystery illness claims 64
2005-03-17 13:27
Luanda - Three people died from an unidentified illness on Wednesday at a hospital in north-eastern Angola, bringing the death toll from a mystery ailment there to 64 in the past three months, officials said.
The deaths have all been recorded at the main hospital in Uige, the capital of a province of the same name which lies about 300km north-east of Luanda, the capital, provincial health director Dr Henrique Benji told Catholic radio station Ecclesia.
The province lies along Angola's border with Congo. Tens of thousands of refugees who fled Angola's two-decade civil war have returned home from Congo in recent months, crossing the border in Uige.
Benji described the illness as a hemorrhagic fever but said the symptoms were not comparable to those of the deadly Ebola virus, which is found in Congo.
Dick Thompson, an official at the World Health Organisation in Geneva, said the UN health agency has a team in Uige investigating the outbreak.
The team was taking samples but had not yet diagnosed the illness, Thompson said by phone.
The Angolan authorities also have sent samples for analysis to a laboratory in South Africa.
Benji said the Uige hospital lacked sophisticated medical equipment, as well as masks and gloves, to care for seriously ill patients.
The province's vice governor, Mendes Domingos, told Ecclesia that authorities were halting the repatriation programme which has been guided by the UN refugee agency.
More than 100 000 Angolans were due to return from Congo via Uige this month. - AP
- SAPA