Marburg death toll climbs to 155

As the death toll from Angola's lethal Marburg outbreak reached 155, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said it was spearheading a nationwide campaign to inform the general public about the haemorrhagic fever, its symptoms and prevention methods. UNICEF's representative in Angola, Mario Ferrari, told IRIN that the epidemic was not yet under control and urgently called for more protective clothing for health workers. "Although the overall response to the emergency is stepping up impressively, there is still a long way to go before we can claim to have the situation under control," he noted. "There is now a national campaign being prepared, which will contain radio and television messages aimed at the general public, concerning general information about the virus, how people can protect themselves and how to deal with cases," Ferrari said. The national social mobilisation campaign is to be launched by the end of this week, in collaboration with the Angolan Ministry of Health and the World Heath Organisation (WHO), and will include pamphlets, posters and stickers available in Portuguese and eight of the country's most commonly spoken indigenous languages, UNICEF said. The names and numbers of officials to contact in the event of suspected cases would also be published. "There will also be specific messages for children," Ferrari said, adding that UNICEF had been very concerned about the disproportionately high number of child victims, although the latest figures showed that the number of deaths among children under 15 has dipped to 64 percent from around 75 percent. A ministry communique said the number of confirmed, probable and suspected cases of Marburg, which emerged in Angola's northern province of Uige on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) last October, had leapt to 175. Ferrari said an urgent priority was to ensure that those who suspected they had the virus would not be afraid to visit their local clinic, and would not attempt to travel farther afield for better medical care. "The atmosphere in Uige is getting better - the trust of the population towards the health centres and the care which the health centres can give is increasing," he said. "This means that people will not run away from Uige and spread the disease in other places." Cases reported in neighbouring Malanje, Kwanza Norte, Cabinda, as well as the national capital, Luanda, were all said to have originated in Uige. A second key priority was to protect and reassure health personnel, many of whom, particularly in Luanda, have complained about the lack of protective equipment. "They must feel comfortable, and not threatened by the fact that they are dealing with people who may be infected," Ferrari added. UNICEF said it and WHO were preparing a joint flash appeal for urgently needed protective clothing, such as goggles, facemasks and heavy-duty boots, gloves and headwear. Disinfectant for health units, mortuaries and infected homes, as well as body bags, emergency kits and essential drugs were also critical to containing the spread of the epidemic. The Angolan outbreak of Marburg is the world's worst since 123 people died in neighbouring DRC during an outbreak between 1998 and 2000. There is no specific cure for Marburg, which is spread via bodily fluids; symptoms include high fever, vomiting and diarrhoea, often accompanied by bleeding. Ferrari said even though there were now 50 international experts in Angola to help combat the epidemic, stamping it out would happen overnight. "If I look to the mobilisation of technical resources, the brains that have come here and the energy that the Ministry of Health is putting into the fight, I'm very confident that things will improve and there will be a success ... but not in two or three days - this will need time."