Panic and ignorance abounded Tuesday in Angola as the
war-ravaged country's skeletal medical staff grappled with the
worst outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus, which has claimed a
record toll.
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The mood was sombre in hospitals in Luanda among doctors and
nurses attending to patients who may or may not have the disease
which has so far killed 126 people, mainly in the north of the
country but including three in the seaside capital.
"The situation is serious. Really serious. It's a disease about
which not much is known. It's worse than the Sars in Asia," said
Margarida Correia, the head of the maternity department in a
prominent Luanda hospital, referring to the severe acute
respiratory syndrome virus that hit Asia in 2003.
"We are very worried because we are in direct contact with the
ailing. We are tending to them without sufficient protection," she
said.
Appeal for international assistance
Luanda's provincial health director Vita Mvemba on Monday
appealed for international assistance, saying the southern African
country, which only recently emerged from a brutal 27-year civil
war, had only 1 200 doctors nationwide.
Conceicao Antonio, a 36-year-old health worker who registers and
weighs the sick and also issues death certificates, said she had
not been given any kind of equipment, masks or gloves to protect
herself from the virus.
"Nobody wants to contract the disease," she said.
A severe form of haemorrhagic fever akin to Ebola, the Marburg
virus was first identified in 1967 in a laboratory in the German
town of the same name. It spreads on contact with the fluids the
body produces in reaction to it, such as blood, urine, excrement,
vomit and saliva.
Mainly children affected
Three-quarters of the deaths in Angola have been children under
the age of five, according to the World Health Organisation, but
the virus has also started to claim adult victims including at
least seven medical workers since it erupted in October.
Quiala Godi, the head of health services in the northern Uige
province - the epicentre of the outbreak - said there was chaos in
the provincial capital, also called Uige.
"The (sole) hospital is almost closed. The employees don't want
to come to work. Everybody has fled."
Luanda midwife-cum-nurse Maria Nsimba said the maternity home
she worked in was on full alert. "Many of those who died in Uige were nurses like us," she said.
Hostility towards Congolese
The disease has also provoked a certain degree of hostility
towards the Congolese.
"I heard that it's a disease the 'langas' (Congolese) brought to
Uige to kill Angolans," said 42-year-old street vendor Eva Domingos
Jinga. "I was told not to buy food sold by the langas if one wants
to avoid the disease."
But Nzilambote Lumbu, a Congolese street seller, said she was
not scared.
"These could be mere rumours. I have my Christ," she said
simply.
Luandan Bela Paquete, however, predicted doom, saying she did
not know what preventive measures to take.
"We are scared of this sickness," she said. "It's going to kill
a lot of people."
Even educated people often know little about the Marburg virus,
like 17-year-old economics student Natalia Ferreira who said it was
"yellow fever".
Traditional healers consulted
Health ministry spokesman Carlos Alberto said many victims died
because they consulted 'kimbandeiros,' or traditional healers, and
only came to the hospital when it was too late to do anything.
"For example, the last nurse to die in Uige was first taken to a
'kimbandeiro' and only when her condition worsened was she brought
to hospital," he said.
The previous most serious recorded outbreak of Marburg was in
the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo between 1998 and
2000, when 123 people died. – (Sapa-AFP)
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