Ebola Like Virus Sweeping Angola
At least 95
people, most of them children under age 5, have died from an outbreak of
Marburg virus in Angola, the World Health Organization reported.
Agency officials
said there have been 102 cases of the disease since last October, mostly
in Uige province in the northern part of the country.
WHO officials
said samples of the disease sent for analysis to a laboratory in Dakar,
Senegal, and to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have
confirmed the illness as Marburg, a disease similar to the deadly Ebola
virus.
The monthly
number of cases has increased steadily since the start of the outbreak,
officials said, adding that this could be the result of intensified surveillance
of the virus, however.
About 75 percent
of all deaths from the disease are among very young children.
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Copyright 2005 by United
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