Ebola-like virus toll rises

2005-03-28 13:12

Luanda - Angola looked set on Monday to equal if not break the record of deaths from the Ebola-like Marburg virus with the number of fatalities rising to 122.

Health ministry spokesperson Carlos Alberto said a young girl aged less than two died on Sunday evening in Uige, the epicentre of the epidemic north of the capital city of Luanda.

"This baby was the child of a 19-year-old woman who died on Sunday morning and the baby died the same evening," he said.

The most serious recorded outbreak of the disease was in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo between 1998 and 2000, when 123 people died.

A severe form of haemorrhagic fever akin to Ebola, the Marburg virus was first identified in 1967. The disease can spread on contact with body fluids such as blood, urine, excrement, vomit and saliva.

It kills around one in four who contract it, and a specific treatment is unknown.

Alberto said affected parents or children usually followed each other to the grave.

Meeting to evaluate

"Generally, that's been the pattern in Uige; either the children die first and the parents follow suit or vice-versa due to the .... contact they have had with each other."

Three-quarters of the deaths have been children under the age of five, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), but the virus has also started to claim adult victims.

Alberto said many victims died because they consulted "kimbandeiros", or traditional healers, and only came to the hospital when it was too late to do anything.

Luanda's provincial health director Vita Mvemba said the "condition in the capital city was stable", with no more deaths.

"In a short while, we will be meeting to evaluate the situation in Luanda. We will despatch a team to the military hospital to check on the health of a Portuguese national who has been there since Sunday, to check if he has the disease."

Of the seven people who contracted Marburg in Luanda, two have died - an Italian doctor and a 15-year-old boy who both came from Uige.

Manpower shortages

The epidemic has so far claimed the lives of two foreign doctors; one Italian and the other Vietnamese.

In a separate interview with Portugal's TSF radio station, Mvemba said, "Today we discussed the possibility of asking the army's medical teams for help."

"We are facing serious manpower shortages. We do not have a great many doctors who are able to tackle the gravity and scale of this epidemic," he added.

"The situation is difficult enough, especially when the population and health professionals give way to panic, but we are going to try to improve" response mechanisms, he said.

Meanwhile in former colonial power Portugal a senior health official said authorities were protectively checking on the cause of death of a Portuguese on Saturday shortly after his return from Angola.

Another Portuguese who had been in Uige province was hospitalised at the weekend for checks that proved negative.

- AFP