Mystery disease 'not airborne'

2008-10-06 12:32

Verashni Pillay

Johannesburg - The highly infectious disease that has killed at least three people and possibly a fourth, is not airborne, Gauteng's chief director of communicable diseases said on Monday.

"If it was airborne there would have been much more cases," Dr Frew Benson told News24. "The disease is not airborne, it is through contact with body fluids."

He said there was no need to panic.

A woman from Zambia was rushed to Morningside Medi-Clinic in a critical condition on September 12. She was treated for tick-bite fever and other potential infections but died two days later, according to the hospital.

A Zambian paramedic who had accompanied her into the country died last week and a nurse at the Morningside Clinic died on Sunday.

Unidentified disease

Despite all three having flu-like symptoms similar to Viral Haemorrhagic Fever (VHF), tests for several diseases, including VHF, came back negative, according to a statement from the Department of Health.

Meanwhile a cleaner at the hospital, who was in contact with the deceased, died on Monday morning.

But Benson said the most likely cause of her death was an "underlying chronic disease" she had had for some time.

He could not disclose the name of the cleaner's disease.

The cleaner had been monitored because she had worked in the ward where the first woman was treated. But Benson said she did not show the same symptoms of the unidentified contagious disease.

"Case definition" included a high temperature coupled with an exposure to any of the deceased.

Morningside Medi-Clinic spokesperson Melinda Pelser told News24 the hospital had tried to locate the cleaner, who worked for an outsourced cleaning service, in an attempt to monitor her condition once it emerged that the disease was infectious.

They were able to trace her on Sunday morning, by which stage she had already been admitted to Leratong Hospital on the West Rand.

Specialist hospitals

The cleaner was then transferred to Charlotte Maxeke Academic hospital, which along with Steve Biko Academic (formerly known as Johannesburg General Hospital and Pretoria Academic Hospital, respectively), had been identified as the two hospitals dealing with the disease.

Anyone who has flu-like symptoms or a high temperature and has been in touch with the deceased or their family should report to these hospitals, Pelser said.

People who have been to Zambia in the past month and have the symptoms should also report to the hospital or contact the Department of Health's Zanele Mngadi on 082 7220161 if they are elsewhere in the country.

Meanwhile Morningside Medi-Clinic has been fielding calls from concerned members of the public who are afraid of coming into the hospital.

Pelser said no infected persons were being treated at the hospital. "Our hospital is safe," she said.

Reports in the Pretoria News said that those who had been in contact with the deceased were being quarantined, but Dr Benson said this was not the case.

"We won't quarantine them," he said. "What we are doing is we are monitoring their temperature."

Morningside Medi-Clinic said they were unaware of anyone being quarantined.

Sneezes and coughs

Pelser said the two hospitals dealing with the disease had the facilities and specialists in place to handle infectious diseases.

"If you were in the same room as the person you wouldn't get it but if they had to sneeze in your face or cough in your face then there's a risk," she said.

The first woman who died was a South African who had been working as a tourism manager in Zambia, and often went horse-riding into the bushes on adventures, Pretoria News reported.

She had severe flu-like symptoms, diarrhoea and a rash.

- News24