Posted on 04/09/2005 5:42:01 PM PDT by Mother Abigail
Wow. BTW, been following your posts on this subject, and appreciate your ability to communicate complex viral analysis in layman's terms.
The closing of three hospitals in Uige would truly be remarkable, and may force more to flee the area, spreading the Marburg virus even further. Although said to be transmitted by bodily fluids, there are now 15 dead nurses and 2 dead physicians, suggesting viral spread is quite efficient. The deaths of the 17 health care workers have all been within the last month.
The situation in Angola is clearly deteriorating. Closing the hospital in Uige may create similar new outbreaks elsewhere. The closing of three hospitals in Uige that are 60 miles apart demonstrates the rapid spread of the virus, and will almost certainly ring alarm bells in Luanda, where transmission has been reported.
This will almost certainly result in some leaving Luanda, increasing the likelihood of Marburg being seeded internationally.
I read elsewhere that the medical workers were stoned.
Have you heard anything about the status of the 9 under quarantine in Italy?
Many of us are asking the same question, and there is no information - on any channel that
I can find.
Sorry
MA
As I understand it, Uige has a population of 500,000.
Additionally, many of the back roads of Angola are mined, making contact tracing, if the populace were not hostile, extremely dangerous.
So no one knows how many cases there are, actually. Some estimates I have read are double the known cases, but I think it is far higher than that. No one is telling people to flee--they are doing it on their own.
"Although said to be transmitted by bodily fluids, there are now 15 dead nurses and 2 dead physicians, suggesting viral spread is quite efficient. The deaths of the 17 health care workers have all been within the last month."
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
This is one scary bug and obviously we'll be hearing lots more about it.
One person on one jet and we could have a pandemic that would make the influenza epidemic of 1918 look like the common cold.
The almost-always fatal disease can't be treated with hospital care. What a horrible situation.
This is sounding a lot like trying to pick up mercury by mashing it.
True, and I am astonished that Doctors without Borders advised that the hospital be closed.
Shades of the movie "Outbreak" that had Dustin Hoffman and Morgan Freeman in it.
No one knows how many cases there are...
Mobile surveillance operations in Uige have ceased because of damage to vehicles and threats of violence. It is unclear if health care workers have been killed because of the unrest, but clearly contact tracing has been limited in the Uige, which is the epicenter of the outbreak.
Therefore management by contact tracing and quarantine will be difficult. The lack of survivors has also led to relatives hiding sick patients because no one has come out of the hospital alive. However, care by untrained and unprotected relatives leads to further transmission. This transmission has now reached Luanda, Angola's capital.
The 3 million residents of Luanda will get increasingly concerned as the virus spreads in Luanda and the number dead increase. The lack of any survivors creates more suspicion about the motives of health care workers and those trying to monitor and quarantine contacts of infected patients.
I've continued to keep up with these threads and am utterly baffled why this isn't making international news. This could turn into a world-wide nightmare. Why isn't this all over the news?
> That possibility raises the prospect of a second health
> care crisis, one in which hundreds of thousands of people
> already facing a disease that is almost always fatal may
> suddenly have no access to hospital care.
Some logical dissonance here. If death is the almost-
certain outcome, what the heck do you need a hospital for?
Is health care a contributory factor with 10% who survive?
Obviously, people with OTHER problems will be affected by
the closings. But given the state of healthcare there, it
might also be a blessing, as they are now at reduced risk
of catching HIV from re-used hypodermic needles.
Do you know, is this a retrovirus? There have seem to have been a few instances when symptoms developed quite a while after exposure.
The media is run by the money interests.
They stand to lose alot if international travel and commerce is curtailed.
Move along, nothing to see here...
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