- (SAP-AFP) - An outbreak of an unidentified haemorrhagic
fever has claimed the lives of 93 people in northern Angola, Deputy
Minister
of Health Jose van Dunem said late on Mon 21 Mar 2005. Of the 101 cases
reported in the Uige provincial hospital in northern Angola, 93 people
have died and 2 have left the hospital without being properly discharged,
said Van Dunem at a news conference. "We are engaged in an effort
with the community to find the 2 patients who fled the hospital and to
detect new cases," he said.
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- The results of blood samples sent to Senegal showed that
the mysterious outbreak was not due to yellow fever, dengue fever, West
Nile virus, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever or Rift Valley fever, said
Moises Francisco, a member of the Angolan technical team monitoring the
outbreak in Uige. Angolan health officials have asked the Centers for
Disease
Control in the United States to conduct tests to determine whether the
fever is caused by Ebola virus. "We have the results [from Senegal]
and they are negative," said Van Dunem. "We are now awaiting
the results of the Ebola tests that we have asked from the Centers for
Disease Control in Atlanta."
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- Angolan health officials said that 8 cases of
haemorrhagic
fever were detected in municipalities near the city of Uige. The officials
last week gave the death toll at 87 from November 2004 to mid-March 2005.
Health officials last week said they did not believe that they were dealing
with an outbreak of Ebola, fever which kills by inducing massive internal
haemorrhages. Most of those affected by the disease are children aged under
5 years, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The WHO has
expressed concern over the fact that children are the main victims, saying
that in general haemorrhagic fevers, such as the one caused by the Ebola
virus, hit all age groups without distinction. "We're perplexed. We
don't know if it's Ebola fever or something else," said Fadela Chaib
in Geneva.
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- The Portuguese health authorities on Mon 21 Mar 2005
advised its citizens against travelling to northern Angola due to the
outbreak.
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- http://www.mg.co.za
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- --
- ProMed Mail
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- Most of the common haemorrhagic fever-associated viruses
appear to have been excluded as causative agents of this outbreak, other
than Lassa fever virus. The results of laboratory tests for the
filoviruses,
Ebola virus and Marburg virus, are still pending, although the involvement
of these viruses is now less likely due to the disproportionate involvement
of children. Lassa fever virus is endemic in parts of West Africa to the
north, but it has not been recorded in Angola. Although a recent outbreak
of Lassa fever in Sierra Leone did affect children disproportionately,
many of the cases were attributed to nosocomial transmission in a
hospital.
-
- - Mod.CP
-
-
- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
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- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
- http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads
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- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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