/ 9 April 1999

VIRUS STRIKES CHILDREN

A PARALYSING virus has killed nine children in Angola’s Luanda province where some 206 children have been hit by the unidentified ailment, the health ministry said Wednesday. Angolan specialists have said the illness, which mainly affects children under 11 years of age, was not polio. They have sent samples to South Africa for analysis. Results were expected later Wednesday or on Thursday, a ministry spokesman said. Health authorities have recorded five adult cases of paralysis, two in Bengo, 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of the capital,and three in Luanda itself. A similar epidemic broke out in the early 1960s, the ministry said.