| The Angolan health authorities announced,
in Luanda on 7 November,
the end of the epidemic outbreak of haemorrhagic fever caused
by the Marburg virus that beset Uíje Province from October 2004 until July 2005
and caused 227 deaths. The declaration, read by Minister
of Health Sebastião Veloso, said that in compliance
with World Health Organisation technical recommendations,
particularly the observance of more than 45 consecutive
days during which no new cases were registered, the country
could be declared free from the disease.
The Ministry of Health had been alerted
by the local epidemiological team to the existence of a number
of cases of an unidentified haemorrhagic fever in Uíje Province. The first victims were
hospitalised children and medical staff in the paediatrics
department of the Uíje Provincial Hospital. In order to assess the
situation, health workers and WHO specialists took 123 samples,
which were sent on 15 March 2005 to the Institut Pasteur
in Dakar, Senegal, and the Centre for Disease Control and
Prevention in Atlanta, USA.
The laboratory results
of nine samples which had tested positive for the Marburg virus were received on 21 March 2005.
The existence of the epidemic was officially announced on
that date and the Angolan government set up a multi-sector
team to fight it.
The epidemic peaked
between 28 March and 3 April 2005, and there was no laboratory
confirmation of new cases in the country after 27 July this
year. There
were 252 cases, 227 deaths and 25 survivors, representing
a 90.07 percent mortality rate. The Ministry of Health
laments the death of 23 health workers - 16 nurses, two doctors
and five traditional healers. This is regarded as having
been the most deadly outbreak in the world.
Meanwhile, the Angolan government expresses
its thanks for the all-round technical support given by the
WHO, for national and international solidarity, public and
private institutions in
Angola and abroad and individuals
mobilising the human, material and financial resources that
made it possible to fight the outbreak.
Finally, the government and the WHO pay
a tribute to those who died in the epidemic, especially the
23 Angolan and foreign health workers, who they consider
to have been the real martyrs in this fight. |
