U.N.: Angolan children dying from Ebola-like illne

[usmeds]

U.N.: Angolan children dying from Ebola-like illness

Friday, March 18, 2005 Posted: 12:55 PM EST (1755 GMT)

GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The Ebola-like mystery ailment that has killed at least 39 people in Angola over the past three months is targeting primarily children under 5, the U.N. health agency said Friday.

While the disease in Angola's northern province of Uige has still not been identified, health officials believe the illness is an acute hemorrhagic fever related to the Ebola virus, said Dick Thompson, spokesman for the World Health Organization.

But unlike Ebola, which tends to predominantly affect the adult population, four out of five cases of this new ailment have been children, Thompson said.

"With Ebola, the age distribution is generally quite different than what we are seeing here," he said. "But we are not ruling Ebola out. We are not ruling anything out."

The symptoms of the virus -- including vomiting, bloody discharge and high fever -- are similar to those for Ebola and other hemorrhagic fevers, including dengue fever, according to WHO.

Angolan officials have put the death toll at 64, but Thompson said the number is probably lower because deaths from other diseases may been included in the Angolan figure.

WHO has no estimates on how deadly the disease might be or how many cases already exist, he said.

"It is really impossible to know right now -- we are collecting information and waiting for lab tests to come back," Thompson said.

If the disease is a known substance, lab tests could provide conclusive data within a week, Thompson said, but warned that if it is unknown the results would take longer.

"With SARS it took three weeks to get results back, but that was a massive international collaboration," he said, in reference to the previously unknown disease that killed nearly 800 people worldwide in 2003.

Ebola causes death in 50-90 percent of clinically ill cases. It is transmitted by direct contact with the blood, secretions, organs or bodily fluids of infected persons.

Outbreaks of the disease are rare because the virus is usually so deadly it kills its victims before they can pass it on. WHO says it has documented more than 1,200 deaths in about 1,850 cases since the first recognized epidemic in 1976.

More than 100,000 Angolans were due to return this month via Uige from Congo, where Ebola still exists in nature.

Dengue fever is common in tropical areas and endemic to parts of Asia and the Caribbean. No vaccine or cure is currently available for the disease.

[usmeds]

Αν και ολίγον μακάβρια η σκέψη μου,

φαίνεται πως η φύση συνεχίζει να δοκιμάζει λύσεις για το πρόβλημα του υπερπληθυσμού...

[Nievsky]

Γιατί όταν αναφέρουμε υπερπληθυσμό σκεφτόμαστε πάντα την Αφρική;Η Αφρική είναι η πιο αραιοκατοικημένη-μετά την Αυστραλία-ήπειρος του πλανήτη.Από το 1900 οι Βρετανοί αποικιοκράτες έλεγαν για τον υπερπληθυσμό της Ινδίας και της Αφρικής.Νομίζω λοιπόν ότι απλά αυτό είναι στερεότυπος τρόπος σκέψης που μας έχει επιβληθεί.