Posted on 12/28/2003 7:00:13 PM PST by Neuromancer
Angolan dies in Zimbabwe of suspected Ebola
December 28, 2003, 02:45 PM
An Angolan man has died in Zimbabwe's prime north western resort town of Victoria Falls in a suspected case of the highly contagious Ebola disease, the official Sunday Mail reported.
The paper quoted the provincial medical director for the region as saying the patient, a cross border trader, died on Christmas Day after being admitted to hospital with symptoms consistent with the virus. If confirmed, it would be Zimbabwe's first case of the deadly virus, which kills up to 90% of infected people and for which there is no known cure. David Parirenyatwa, the health minister said samples from the man had been taken to South Africa for laboratory tests.
"At the moment it is only a suspected case and we will only know the cause of the death when we get laboratory test results," Parirenyatwa told the Sunday Mail.
Parirenyatwa and other Health Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment today. Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids and causes illness quickly -- leading to internal bleeding and shock.
The disease is named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, where the virus was first discovered in 1976. If confirmed, the case would be a blow for Zimbabwe's health sector, brought to its knees in the last two months by a strike by doctors and nurses in government hospitals to press for salary hikes of up to 11 000% .
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Zimbabwe: Suspected Case of Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever --------------------------------------- HARARE: Zimbabwean health officials are testing for the deadly Ebola virus after an Angolan man died in Zimbabwe's prime tourist town of Victoria Falls, Health Minister David Parirenyatwa said on Sun 28 Dec 2003. He confirmed a report in the official Sunday Mail that the patient, a cross-border trader, died on Christmas Day after being admitted to hospital with symptoms consistent with the highly contagious virus. "It could be [another] hemorrhagic fever...but we still have to rule out Ebola," Parirenyatwa told Reuters, saying no other similar illnesses had been reported in Victoria Falls, a town close to the Zambian border and the hub of Zimbabwe's ailing tourism industry. "The person did not get into contact with anyone, he went straight into hospital," he said.
Parirenyatwa confirmed that samples from the man had been taken to neighboring South Africa for laboratory tests but could not say when the results were expected. The term hemorrhagic fever covers a number of different viral infections, some relatively harmless but others, including the feared Ebola, extremely deadly.
If confirmed as Ebola, it would be Zimbabwe's first case of the deadly virus, which kills up to 90 percent of infected people. There is no known cure. Ebola is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids. Its symptoms include fever, weakness and muscle pain followed by vomiting, diarrhea, reduced liver and kidney functions and internal and external bleeding. The disease is named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire, where the virus was first identified in 1976.
A confirmed Ebola hemorrhagic fever case at Victoria Falls could blow another hole in the Zimbabwean tourism industry, which has shrunk by more than 60 percent in the past three years amid an acute political and economic crisis many blame on President Robert Mugabe's government.
Marburg haemorrhagic fever, caused by a different filovirus, was reported in 1975, in an Australian hitchhiker who may have contracted the disease while traveling through Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and who died subsequently. The infection was passed to two other persons, both of whom recovered. Marburg haemorrhagic fever was reported again in 1982 in a young man who had recently come from Zimbabwe to South Africa, on the basis of transient antibody activity, but it was subsequently stated that this diagnosis should be regarded as unsubstantiated.
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