Pandemic in the Making?

Pandemic in the Making?

WHO Teams Attacked as Suspicions Grow in Angola Marburg Outbreak - {ape}

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Marburg Virus

Pandemic in the Making?
C. L. Cook
pej.org
April 11th, 2005

On March 23, the World Health Organization released reports officially naming the mysterious illness plaguing Angola. Marburg, the deadly virus first identified in the late sixties, was tagged as the culprit in the deaths of over 150 people since October. The viral haemorrhagic fever cousin to the more famous ebola fever has now spread to seven of Angola's 18 provinces, and the capital, Luanda.


The WHO's official diagnosis has prompted international crisis response.

Until a month ago, cases were sporadic, mostly occuring in very young children, but last month the first of 17 health care workers to become infected and die heightened concerns that this, the largest outbreak of its kind, could become a pandemic.

http://www.truthout.org/

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The spread of Marburg is creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion.

The WHO suspended mobile surveillance efforts in the wake of stone-throwing attacks. Rumours have implicated foreign medical aid missions with creating the crisis through tainted child immunization programs. While locals say they are upset that friends and relations diagnosed and isolated in hospitals who died were quickly buried without next of kin notification, or ceremony.