Posted on 03/27/2005 8:21:50 PM PST by Mother Abigail
People have been warned not to travel to the country.
The Marburg virus first broke out in the northern Uige province in October and has killed 121 people so far. The virus causes fever, vomiting and bleeding. The Angola health minister said the situation was 'critical.' Besides those dead a similar number are in hospital being treated for the disease.
A WHO outbreak response team, including experts from the Inter-country programme for southern Africa, the Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) and from WHO Headquarters are working with the Ministry of Health to rapidly provide technical support, contact tracing and surveillance, infection control, and are rushing to raise awareness of the disease in the community.
Angola, a country of 11 million peole, is less than the size of Texas. It is located in Southern Africa, bordering the South Atlantic Ocean, between Namibia and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The above comment on the number of patients in the hospital is a misconception in many of the media reports. Marburg virus is killing over 90% of those infected. The number of known cases in the hospital is small, because over 90% of those infected have died. If there were 132 infected patients in the hospital, 20 to 40 per day would be dying. Instead only a handful are admitted each day, and a handful are dying each day, because most of those infected have already died.
As noted in the WHO announcement of March 23, 2005 after the Marburg virus was identified:
"Retrospective analysis has now identified 102 cases in the outbreak, which dates back to October 2004. Of these case, 95 have been fatal." Thus, the fatality rate based on those numbers is 93%. However, the true rate is near 100%, because the latest cases have not been sick long enough to die.
There have been no recent reports of any Marburg infected patients in Angola who have recovered.
Those still alive are still in the hospital. The latest numbers indicate 121 out of 132 have died. That means there are only a handful who have been diagnosed with Marburg and are still alive. It does not mean 132 are still in the hospital being treated.
Patients have only been living a few days in the hospital. The daily death toll would be markedly higher if there were 132 hospitalized patients infected with the Ebola-like Marburg virus. The virus has also taken a toll on healthcare workers. Six nurses and two physicians have died, as they try to treat patients, but lack basic barriers such as gloves, gowns, and masks.
Marburg also appears to have been transmitted in Angola's capital, Luanda, which has an international airport, raising concerns of further spread.
MA
Bad omen...
Hemmoragic (sp?) fevers like Ebola and Marburg are really nasty. If I understand the nature of these diseases, even top-of-the-line medical care is generally ineffective. With the horrible medical care available in that part of the world, the only thing that can be done in many cases is to quarantine the area until the virus runs its course.
Those poor people. It seems like that part of the world gets hit with diseases like this. I wonder how long it*s going to take something like this to arrive in America? We*ve been fortunate so far, but the way people fly all over the world it could be here before we know it.
I thought Marburg was a bit less fatal that Ebola. (It's also shorter in length.) Unless something happened recently, the vector is still unknown for both.
not good.
The vector for both remains unknown, however the larger outbreaks of Marburg Virus (MBGV) and Ebola Virus (EBOV) have similar case fatality rates. Like influenza (type of Orthomyxoviridae), they are single stranded negative sense RNA viruses. MBGV and EBOV are the two types of Filoviridae.
There have been several large outbreaks involving the two viruses, and most of the larger outbreaks have been characterized by a high case fatality rate. In 1976 there were two large EBOV outbreaks. In southern Sudan 117 out of 284 patients died, giving a case fatality rate of 42%. In adjacent Zaire 280 out of 318 patients died, case fatality rate of 88%.
The largest MBGV outbreak was between 1998 and 2000 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where 123 out of 149 patients died, case fatality rate of 83%.
Eating the wrong animals, or the wrong partsof animals (apes, apes' brains)? For some reason, nature doesn't like this?
That is new information than I had. (I used to read some site on the net devoted to viral diseases but I don't get it anymore; I forgot why, maybe they started charging.)
Quarantine. These viruses kill like the flu and fever blisters run their course. You catch the flu or get a fever blister you are getting better after 5-10 days. Marburg, Ebola your flat dead and not a pretty corpse. Quarantine, if you can stop the spread(ie contact) then the outbreak fizzles cause it kills so fast; if it gets out, well the sky is the limit. These outbreaks make the news but are contained as there is not a whole lot of traffic through these locations. I wonder what would be the scenario if there would be an outbreak in a locale like Thailand, or some such Euro-trash vacation area. I realize the conditions are not right for that occurring, but hell, where did West Nile come from? Beware the flu on a Airbust from Thailand!
Ken Alibek had some chilling accounts of Soviet experience with Marburg via bio weapon work. Truly nasty stuff if it ever got into the wrong hands.
Peter Sellers said it comes from the Minkeys!
"new" should be "newer" (spell checkers don't proofread)
In a first world country the death rate will only be about 50% until the critical care wards are full, then it's going to be just as high as in the third world, over 90%
If this breaks out of Africa it could be a slate wiper.
So9
Ahh, then there is the bioweapon aspect; make it more efficient. Makes a Thailand or anywhere (Earth) scenario totally possible eh what?
I'm sorry to say it, but if WHO and our CDC spent as much time, money, and effort dealing with things such as this, instead of stupid stuff maybe you wouldn't be posting so many of these type articles.
Please don't get me wrong - I for one, truly appreciate seeing this information........I'm just fed up with the bureaucracies that were (allegedly) created to deal with controlling contagious diseases that are now more interested in curbing (bad) habits instead of finding cures, or at least controlling communicable diseases.
I don't know about them eating the animals. I read that in Africa some of the men are having sex with them. (Trying not to laugh here, but so help me, it's true.)
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