- LUANDA (AFP) - The world's
worst outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus has claimed 311 lives in
Angola, a joint statement by Angola's health ministry and the World Health
Organisation said.
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- Three hundred deaths were recorded in the northern province
of Uige, the epicentre of the outbreak, it said, adding that 337 cases
had been detected since October last year.
-
- A week ago, Angolan Health Minister Sebastiao Veloso
said the southern African nation was gaining the upper hand in its battle
against the deadly virus.
-
- "Everything indicates we are on the road towards
controlling the epidemic. We are no longer in the same situation which
we were in just three weeks ago," he told Lisbon-based Radio Renascenca.
-
- There is no cure for the virus, whose exact origin is
unknown and which was first detected in 1967 when West German laboratory
workers in the town of Marburg were infected by monkeys from Uganda.
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- It spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as
blood, excrement, vomit, saliva, sweat and tears but can be contained with
relatively simple hygenic precautions, according to experts.
-
- The most serious outbreak of Marburg until now had been
in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 123 people died between 1998
and 2000.
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