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Posted on 05/04/2005 12:42:04 AM PDT by Judith Anne
Welcome to the Marburg Surveillance Project.
This thread will be used for all of the latest Marburg Outbreak News and comments. This is the place to post all comments about the Marburg outbreak, all articles and links to articles about the Marburg outbreak.
We're going to use just one thread instead of having to go from article to article as we have in the past. We'll use this thread as long as we can.
100% agree
Okay--you're safe! Now, what about everyone else?
Yes, and isn't it bizarre? By keeping a lid on it, they are ensuring panic and exodus--in fact, that's already occurred--WHO and MSF have clearly reported that not only do Angolans resist help and run to other areas, they stone the vehicles of the "helpers."
Marburg hemorrhagic fever continues its assault on Angola. As of 26 May, 399 cases of the disease have been reported, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Of these cases, 335 were fatal. The vast majority of cases have occurred in Uige Province, where 388 cases and 324 deaths have been reported.
Four new suspected cases, of which three were fatal, were reported in Bungo municipality, in Uige Province, last Thursday. Two of those cases were laboratory confirmed. They are the first cases detected in Bungo since early April.
An urgent investigation has been launched to determine whether the Bungo cases can be linked to Uige municipality, where transmission is known to be ongoing. Another focus of transmission would be a disturbing development for outbreak control.
Chains of Transmission Continue
In Uige municipality, procedures for contact tracing now are operating with greater efficiency, said WHO.
This week, staff from the mobile surveillance teams were able to visit and look for signs of illness in more than half of the 100 persons known to have had close contact with a Marburg patient.
New cases are continuing to occur with no known link to a previous case, however, suggesting that the surveillance system has not yet reached the efficiency needed to interrupt chains of transmission.
Training for Traditional Healers
Local and international staff have continued to identify cultural practices that create opportunities for exposure to the virus and thus allow the outbreak to continue.
Most recently, around 200 traditional healers have been trained in ways to reduce risks to themselves and their clients and given masks and gloves. To date, at least two traditional healers have died of Marburg hemorrhagic fever.
Intensive educational campaigns, supported by local religious leaders and Red Cross volunteers, about the hazards of home treatment using injections have resulted in the collection and safe disposal of large numbers of syringes.
It is not certain, however, that this practice, which is a highly efficient way to spread the virus, has been fully eliminated in Uige’s population.
Since I can't think of nully's ex, I think of Marburg and it cools me down.
You know what I think of? That little one-month old baby whose mother died of Marburg, and who was left to die of it alone, sick, crying, in agony...
When I think of that baby's death, I know that if I were there, I would gladly embrace a death just like that, in order to comfort that child in any way I could, to ease it even just for a moment...this is the cruelest, damnedest disease.
Yes they said Horacio recovered...but would they really let him leave after just 13 days without symtoms? That just seems wrong...doesn't add up to me that the medical workers would be that careless unless #1...He never had marburg in the first place or , #2...that the health system is so overtaxed that they really have no choice but to let him go as soon as he appeared "well"...
Great news if people are beginning to recover, perhaps it is weakening or is less fatal than originally suspected...
Who knows???
What got me was the Pastor saying that people are fleeing to Luanda and other villages. We know that:
#1...We have official accounts of the virus reaching Luanda back in April, before being reclassified.
#2...Many accounts from Drs. and citizens of people fleeing to Luanda from Uige, going back to the earliest news reports and continuing through todays post from MSF
#3...Luanda has an isolation unit and a lab
I think at this point there are cases in Luanda. So many things point to it, its hard to ignore.
Agreed. And not only Luanda.
The baby...I have never forgotten that either. The desciption haunts me and knowing this isn't the only child to die this way makes it even worse. I also am reminded of the report of a father abandoning a child after the mother died of marburg and the neighbor women took turns nursing and caring for that infant and they all succumbed to the virus... these unnamed women also remain in my mind... thank God some people can retain their humanity in the face of such ugliness.
Imagine the close proximity of these people...no doors and windows, no water, no sewer...the things your neighbors must hear when you're dying of marburg...and how can they avoid your body fluids/waste...seems impossible under those conditions.
We are all flesh and blood, and frailer than we like to imagine...10 virions, molecularly small, and we die...
This week they were able to contact half of the 100 people they are following? Their surviellence system isn't up to speed? Another famous understatement by those in charge of this disaster. They only were able to contact about 50 people... OH MY GOD !!! Anybody can see THATS NOT GOOD!!!
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/5fc4900df851fd49f98cda6df8642b44.htm
Here is the latest on Ebola in Congo, the Congolese aren't cooperating with WHO either. The official response has been tight-lipped on this too, does anyone think this ebola and this marburg are related...I believe Judith correctly predicted it would be "called" ebola...
"The attitude of the population is hindering the strategy for dealing with this scourge," WHO said. "It blocks the experts from taking biological samples."
If I knew I was dying from Ebola/Marburg, and someone from WHO came to me in one of those space suits--not to HELP me, but to take a "biological sample" I just don't think I would be particularly cooperative or helpful. I might even figure out a way to make the "space suit" nervous...they could get their samples after I died, or not at all.
Same here !
This virus is a mass murderer. A virtual serial killer threatening to jump across the big pond. Its sobering to think we are but a tiny group of people who have any knowledge that Marburg even exists. What a surprise it will be if it does make the trip. Avian Flu is getting some media attention but Marburg little or nothing.
Marburg is nowhere on any television media. I remember this point in SARS, do you? And then it showed up in Canada...
The thing is, if Marburg Angola does make the jump, none of our vaunted medical facilities will be able to do a thing more for the patients than is done in Angola--except for the fact that here, it will take 40-50 people more to do nothing for EACH patient here than it does there, and more hospital workers of all occupations will be at risk here...
How do you keep dying people clean when they are leaking blood everywhere and you are dressed in a HOT HOT spacesuit? You spend two hours dressing, two hours working, and two hours undressing, and you are just the lab tech...dietary, housekeeping, nursing assistants, nurses, doctors--for the love of God--I cannot imagine what it would be like...and then, you call the mortuary, and they tell you they cannot pick up the deceased, because they don't have proper equipment...
Good point.
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