Fever spiralling out of control

2005-03-28 22:23

Luanda - The death toll after an outbreak of a deadly Ebola-like disease in Angola has climbed to 122 Monday, as the country turned to civilians and the military, saying it did not have enough doctors to fight the Marburg virus.

The number of deaths was one short of the most serious outbreak ever recorded of the haemorrhagic fever, which kills around one in four who contract it, and a specific treatment is unknown.

"We have not only asked the military for help, but also from around the world, national and international, in the fight against Marburg," said Luanda's provincial health director Vita Mvemba.

He said Angola faced a shortage of doctors countrywide and specifically in the battle against Marburg, which broke out in October, killing mainly children, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In a separate interview with Portugal's TSF radio station, Mvemba said: "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.

Mother, baby died

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.

Three-quarters of the deaths have been children under the age of five, according to the WHO, but the virus has also started to claim adult victims including at least seven medical workers.

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.

"For example, the last nurse to die in Uige was first taken to a 'kimbandeiro' and only when her condition worsened was she brought to hospital," he said.

Fears that it will spread

Just across the DRC border from Uige province, the WHO and local health and administrative officials have set up a crisis committee in case the outbreak spreads across the frontier, the WHO epidemiologist in Kinshasa, Florent Ekwenzala, said on Monday.

"For the moment, no case of Marburg fever has been reported in the DRC. The crisis committee has been formed as a precaution in Matadi," the main town in Bas-Congo province close to the border with Uige, Ekwenzala explained.

- AFP