More samples taken to determine Durba illness

Blood and tissue samples taken from suspected haemorrhagic fever cases in Durba, Province Orientale, were to be flown on Wednesday to Uganda for forwarding by WHO to testing laboratories at the National Institute of Virology in South Africa and the United States Centre for Disease Control, an MSF official told IRIN. The samples were collected last week during an MSF follow-up visit to the Durba area, where several suspected cases have been reported since the end of the main outbreak in May, she said. "In June, July and August, there were probably somewhere around 15 new suspected cases", identified in the Durba area, but there has been no laboratory confirmation of the presence of haemorrhagic fever since May, the official said. Last week's samples were collected from among nine suspected cases identified between end July and end August, of whom four died. The new cases "fit the case definition of viral haemorrhagic fever, but there are certainly other viruses that can cause this clinical picture", the MSF official told IRIN. "We should just wait for the results," she said, adding "nothing is happening right now that has not been happening all summer long". Over 90 suspected haemorrhagic fever cases were reported in the Durba area between November 1998 and May, and the presence of the Marburg virus was confirmed by laboratory analysis in five of those cases, according to information posted on WHO's website. A sample taken from a recent suspected case in nearby Isiro earlier this month has tested negative for haemorrhagic fever, a WHO official told IRIN on Monday.