Marburg Toll in Angola Rises to 237

>> The health ministry and WHO said in a statement that the greatest number of deaths -- 190 -- was recorded in the northern Uige province, the epicenter of the epidemic that was first detected in October.

The highest number of deaths after Uige was in the Kwanza Sul province with six fatalities and six cases, followed by five deaths and 11 cases in Luanda, five deaths and six cases in Zaire, two deaths and four cases in Mananje, and one death and one case each in the provinces of Cabinda and Kwanza Norte.

Meanwhile, health ministry spokesman Alberto Carlos told reporters that six other bodies had been found in a hospital morgue in Uige and that laboratory tests proved that they had succumbed to the virus.

He underlined that these deaths did not figure in the toll released Tuesday, without giving a reason. <<

The latest update indicated that the recorded cases had grown to 231 (excluding the six bodies in the Uige morgue). Uige has 190, but now Luanda has the second highest number of cases with 11. These two provinces also have the largest numbers of recorded patients that are still alive, with 12 in Uige and 6 in Luanda. The only other provinces with recorded patients who have not yet died are Mananje with 2 and Zaire with 1. The other 3 provinces have no recorded survivors.

These latest figures for Luanda match the 5 deaths described in media reports. The data suggests that the two recent cases in Cacuaco described in media reports have either not died, or not been recorded. The same situation would apply to the Portuguese national. The latest update indicates that there are three additional cases in Luanda which have not been described in media reports.

This added detail focuses attention on Uige and Luanda, but the number of unreported cases in these two areas is still unknown, which is also true for the other provinces.

The 237 cases suggest that the number of recorded cases will soon exceed the record number of 280 deaths in the 1976 Ebola outbreak in Zaire. There are still no recent reports of any of the Marburg cases in Angola being discharged.

Angola-Congo: Officials Review Fight Against Marburg Virus

UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

April 12, 2005
Posted to the web April 12, 2005

Brazzaville

Angolan and Congolese medical officials, as well as representatives of two UN agencies, have reviewed ways to stop the spread of the deadly Marburg virus across their borders.

"As neighbouring countries, we need to continue working together, exchanging ideas and information in order to overcome this epidemic," the officials said on Friday at the ROC border town of Masabi.

The officials, who included representatives of the UN Children's Fund and the UN World Health Organization, discussed a report on the fight against the haemorrhagic fever, which started in the Angolan province of Uige, killing at least 200 people. It has spread to eight other provinces in Angola.

Marburg is an Ebola-like virus transmitted by direct contact with body fluids. Symptoms of the disease include high fever, haemorrhaging, vomiting and diarrhoea, which appear after an incubation period of two to 21 days. There is no known cure or vaccine.

The ROC doctors who participated in the Masabi meeting were from the capital, Brazzaville and the commercial port city of Pointe-Noire. They were led by the director-general of health, Dr. Damase Bozongo while the Angolan delegation was led by Dr Francisco Bungo, the chief representative of the health services in Angola's 2nd Region.

"We made all necessary provisions in the town of Cabinda [the northern Angola enclave] to stop the spread of this epidemic to neighbouring towns," Bungo said.

He added that sensitisation campaigns were being done at in the army, schools, churches and through political parties. Safety measures, including quarantining and testing, had been put in place at the country's airport and ports in order to avoid infections in or out of the country, he said.

"When we received the information of a case in Cabinda, we got together with medical authorities of our neighbouring countries in order to stop the spread," Bozongo said.

Commenting on the health safety measures so far, the WHO representative in ROC, Dr Adamou Alzouma Yada, said, "Collaboration between these two countries in fighting the virus was a very good initiative."

He added that the spread of the disease would be "very dangerous and fast" because of cross-border movement of people. He advised the two governments to improve their communication in order to monitor the virus better.

ROC has deployed teams in Pointe-Noire and in the towns of Banga-Ntaka, Kimpessi, Kimongo and Dolisie in the southwestern part of the country to monitor the situation.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Thank you for the ping, EBH. I really appreciate all the investigative work on these threads.

I can't stay now & will have to check back later for an answer, but from what I understand, people with Marburg symptoms are supposedly testing negative for Marburg?

The symptoms of a Marburg or Ebola type of virus are pretty distinctive, aren't they? The woman in the hospital last week was hemorraging out of her rectum, blood running all over her legs and feet. I'm not a doctor but it seems to me that that is unusual, to say the least.

So it seems to me that:

(1) they are lying about the negative results in order to keep people calm,

(2) the virus has changed in some dramatic way, or

(3) there is some other disease that's just as deadly, or deadlier (since the "old" Marburg had a fatality rate of something like 30%, right?).

And has anyone heard anything about the Italian quarantine victims?

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