http://allafrica.com/stories/200505100167.html
May 10, 2005 Mwala Kalaluka Mongu
HEALTH authorities in Mongu have gone on a Marburg alert after a resident of Imwiko North Park in the town died from what was suspected to be the deadly viral disease that has claimed several lives in neighbouring Angola.
And Mongu District Health Board chairman, Charles Wakung'uma has said that the provision of health services should be taken as a right.
Mongu director of health Dr. Francis Liywalii said during an interview in Namushakende yesterday that his office has carried out education and sensitisation programmes in the compound where, Mubita Nang'alelwa, who died from an acute illness and was buried at Katongo Cemetery in Mongu last week, resided.
According to investigations, the deceased had come back from a visit to neighbouring Angola sometime in January this year and some concerned residents in the town thought he could have contracted the virological disease, especially that he had bled from the mouth just before he died.
"We carried out sensitisation programmes in Imwiko North Park last week, because that is where the funeral of the man took place," said Dr.Liywalii.
Dr Liywalii was however, quick to point-out that clinical evidence did not show that the disease was Marburg, which is a virological disease that is in the same class as the Ebola virus.
He also said they have put in place preventive measures and that they will keep surveying the situation in Imwiko North Park compound in view of the development.
And the Central Board of Health (CBoH) in the Western Province has concluded a 10-day epidemic preparedness programme along the province's border areas following the outbreak of the deadly Marburg disease in neighbouring Angola.
A source disclosed that the undertaking also included the supplying of protective equipment in all the areas along the border with Angola apart from sensitising the communities in the areas that fall in the Kalabo and Shangombo districts.
The source said that the initiative was conducted with the help of neighbourhood health committees in the various communities.
The incubation period for Marburg is five to 10 days after contact, which is usually through droplet transmission and coming into contact with an infected person's body fluids, before the patient develops a fever and general body malaise. This is followed by the development of a rash and at this time the disease becomes highly infectious.
Marburg, according to expert information has claimed about 90 percent of the reported cases in Angola and is said to have become more virulent than before, and residents in Western Province fear that there might be a cross-over as has been the case with the livestock disease Contagious Bovine Pleuro-Pneumonia (CBPP).
And opening a five-week workshop for Community Health Volunteers (CBVs) and Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) at Namushakende Youth Skills Training Centre yesterday, Wakung'uma noted that it would be difficult to stretch health services close to the people without involving members of the community.
"Health services should be seen as a right. It is extremely difficult for health workers in the rural health centres to cover all the places, because catchment areas for rural health centres are very, very wide," Wakun'guma observed.
Wakung'uma said the role that traditional birth attendants play in ensuring the drastic reduction of death among expectant mothers during child labour could not be overemphasised.
Mongu is in Zambia apparently. One of these days I'm going to actually post all information correctly at the same time.
Yep. Judith Anne, you may want to ping the list on this post.
" This is followed by the development of a rash and at this time the disease becomes highly infectious."
Shedding virus through the skin! Remember how with Sars, aspirin given for the fever increased the shedding. Remember how it cropped up on a different (psychiatric ward I think it was) floor than the quarantined SARs floor in one Canadian hospital. Perhaps some early OTC treatment here is doing likewise and causing aerosole distribution from some point. Or maybe sponge baths are the first treatment if aspirin isn't plentiful. What kind of facilities for bathing are used. Are they community oriented or school oriented?.
HEALTH authorities in Mongu have gone on a Marburg alert after a resident of Imwiko North Park in the town died from what was suspected to be the deadly viral disease that has claimed several lives in neighbouring Angola.
...According to investigations, the deceased had come back from a visit to neighbouring Angola sometime in January this year and some concerned residents in the town thought he could have contracted the virological disease, especially that he had bled from the mouth just before he died.
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It sounds as though this is NOT an instance of spreading outside Angola, since the town in question, Mongu, is 800 miles southeast of Uige Province (in NORTH Angola) and this part of Zambia borders SOUTH Angola 100 miles to the west. If the man had been in northern Angola he would have had to ride a bus for 20 hours back in January and there would be large numbers of cases all along the route in the past 4 months, one would think. And since Mongu is on the Zambezi River which flows 1500 miles eastwards to Mozambique, there would have been some spread that way.
PS: I am a man, in case anyone was wondering whether this is just a bunch of women worrying or whatever.