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Marburg Toll In Angola Explodes to 200
 As of 6 April, 200 cases of Marburg haemorrhagic fever have been reported in Angola. Of these cases, 173 have died. Kuanza Sul has reported its first case, bringing the number of affected provinces to six, all concentrated in the north-western part of the country.Dr Niman's commentary: The latest update from the WHO clearly shows exponential growth a Marburg cases, creating increasing difficult conditions for contact tracing, which virtually assures continuation of the record breaking increase in cases. The differential between diagnosed cases and those who have died has grown to 27. Last week the differential was 5-8 cases. The increase in patients who are still alive does not indicate that patients are recovering. It indicates that new cases are being discovered faster than the older cases can die, because the number of older cases is small. The growing differential also indicates that a number of additional patients have been identified, and the exponential growth virtually guarantees a new death record this month. The prior record of 280 deaths was set in the Ebola outbreak of 1967. The dramatic growth in cases can be seen in the monthly figures. In January there were 20, 31 in February, and 75 in March. In the first 6 days of April there are already 74 newly diagnosed cases. The case fatality rate remains at or near 100%. New cases in neighborhoods or slums near Luanda indicate many more infections will be reported in the coming weeks. I thought the low numbers of new cases reported over the last two days indicated either the disease was slowing down of its own accord or the education/tracing/isolation resources brought in were having an effect. It now appears it is not slowing down at all and the number of cases is more than doubling with each infection cycle (7 to 10 days). A disease with no cure, no vaccine and a 100% fatality rate doubling every 10 days is about as bad as it gets. Posted by: phil_b 2005-04-07 |
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