An outbreak of an Ebola-like virus in Angola has killed 150 people — 20 in the past three days — and health officials across Southern Africa are scrambling to contain the deadly disease.
The Angolan outbreak has set the record for the most fatalities from the rare Marburg virus; 80% of the dead have been children under 15, while one of the victims was an Italian doctor.
”In total, we have registered 163 cases, among them 150 dead,” Angola’s Deputy Health Minister, Jose Van Dunem, announced on Monday.
Marburg is a haemorrhagic fever in which victims die from extensive bleeding, internally or from orifices, including eyes and pores.
The outbreak is centred on the northern Uige province, bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Although several victims have died in Angola’s coastal capital, Luanda, 320km south-west of Uige, all of them had visited the northern province.
The rapidly rising death toll from the disease has panicked residents of Luanda. All city shops have sold out of bleach, which people are using to disinfect their homes. Many families are keeping their children from school.
There is no known cure for the Marburg virus, nor is there a vaccine against it. The Angolan outbreak began in October but has picked up pace in the past two weeks. Like the better-known Ebola, the Marburg virus is passed on by contact with the body fluids of an infected person, including sweat and saliva.
The World Health Organisation’s Angola representative, Fatoumata Diallo, said patients in Uige are being isolated and treated.
”The situation is close to improving,” he added.
”We are on alert for any cases which might be imported to South Africa,” said Lucille Blumberg of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Passengers on flights from Angola are screened before entry to South Africa.
A person infected with the virus could appear healthy for several days, because the incubation period for the disease is between 10 days and three weeks.
Marburg was first identified in 1967 among laboratory technicians in Germany working with monkeys imported from Uganda. There have been six recorded outbreaks of the disease since then.
The worst outbreak of the virus previously recorded killed 123 people of 149 infected in the Congo between 1998 and 2000. Most of those infected were gold miners. The Congo cases were the last known outbreak.
The disease can pass from monkeys to humans, but what the reservoir for the virus is, is not known. Monkeys die from the disease as quickly as humans do, so scientists believe the Marburg virus resides in some other organism, which can pass it on while staying healthy itself.
Early symptoms of Marburg are diarrhoea, stomach pains, nausea and vomiting, which give way to bleeding.
Experts say the symptoms are similar to those of malaria, amoebic dysentery or tuberculosis, making it difficult to identify. — Guardian Unlimited Â