A mystery illness that left 12 people dead in northern Angola late last year was caused by intestinal parasites and was not a recurrence of the Ebola-like Marburg virus, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
The spate of deaths in Uije province had raised fears that the Marburg virus, which claimed the lives of more than 220 people during an outbreak in late 2004, had flared up again in the region.
However, the country’s deputy health minister said that tests carried out in the United States had ruled out such a possibility.
”We have received the results of the analysis conducted in a laboratory in Atlanta and we now know that it was an illness caused by intestinal parasites. It was not the Marburg that we saw in Uije,” Jose Van Dunem said.
Public health is a major problem in Angola, with large parts of the Southern African country’s infrastructure in a state of ruin after a 27-year civil, war which ended in 2002. — Sapa-AFP