Are we 100% this is a true Marburg strain? I mean we might have something new here.
Marburg outbreak contained
From correspondents in Luanda
April 22, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse
THE outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus that has claimed 244 lives in Angola has been confined to the province of Uige, as no new cases had been detected outside the northern region, the country's health ministry says.
"We have circumscribed the epidemic to the province of Uige," Deputy Health Minister Jose Van Dunem said today, adding that four provinces and the capital Luanda had not recently reported any new cases.
"Kwanza Norte, Kwanza Sul, Zaire, Cabinda and Luanda have not reported any new cases of Marburg."
Of 266 cases of the virus, 244 people have died - with the vast bulk of those from the northern province of Uige, where 228 patients have succumbed to the virus in the worst outbreak ever of the disease.
Marburg virus can kill a healthy person in a week, causing diarrhoea and vomiting followed by severe internal bleeding.
The virus was discovered in 1967 when German laboratory workers in Marburg were infected by monkeys from Uganda.
Previously, the most serious outbreak of the disease occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 123 people died between 1998 and 2000.
"The good news is that in the province of Uige, samples from 16 cases were sent to the laboratory for analysis and 14 came back as negative," Mr Van Dunem said.
A total of 518 people are under medical observation nationwide after having been in contact with an infected person out of whom 406 are in Uige, a dirt-poor city of shacks 300km north of Luanda.
"The epidemic is under control because the majority of cases continue to be recorded in the province of Uige, and in the municipality of Uige," Mr Van Dunem said.
"The disease is on a decline.
"The epidemic is under control because we know how it is transmitted, how to break the chain of transmission."
Mr Van Dunem admitted cultural factors" such as the fact Angolans themselves prepare the body of a loved one for burial were complicating the campaign to stamp out the virus.
The virus, the exact origin of which is unknown, and for which there is no cure, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood, excrement, vomit, saliva, sweat and tears, but it can be contained with relatively simple hygiene precautions, experts say.
A team of 24 Angolan and foreign health experts travelled to Uige today to reinforce a team reaching out to residents to explain the threat posed by the bug.