Marburg's Behavior Bewilders Scientists

Nature.Com ^ | April 7, 2005 | Helen Pearson

[EBH]

Marburg's behaviour bewilders scientists Helen Pearson Rising death toll flags unexplained character of killer virus.

The Marburg virus has infected mostly children in this outbreak.

© SPL

The current outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in Angola is raising difficult questions about this enigmatic pathogen and its origins.

As of 5 April, Angolan health officials had reported 181 cases of Marburg haemorrhagic fever, of which 156 have been fatal. The outbreak of the rare but lethal virus, which causes fever and circulatory collapse, is the worst ever recorded.

Health workers' primary concerns are treating those infected and blocking the further spread of the virus. The World Health Organization and other medical groups have set up five mobile surveillance teams in Uíge province, where the outbreak originated, to identify rumours of cases. "Everyone is focused on the cases in front of them," says WHO spokesman Dick Thompson, who is working in Angola.

Researchers interested in the disease are focusing on some unusual features of the latest outbreak. For one thing, the probability of dying from Marburg disease once you've caught it, currently more than 85%, is higher than in previous events. In the first recorded incidence of the disease, which stemmed from infected monkeys shipped from Uganda to Europe in 1967, some 23% of those infected were killed.

Deadlier enemy

The high death toll parallels that of the only other large outbreak of the disease, in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 1998 and 2000. There, more than 80% of infected patients died, according to analyses carried out by Daniel Bausch, of the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, and his colleagues...

[EBH]

From the article in question, Again, this might be explained by the possibility that the latest outbreak is caused by a slightly different strain. But experts favour an alternative explanation: that children have something in common that helped them pick up the infection. They might, for example, have received childhood vaccinations from re-used needles contaminated with the virus.

[Bigh4u2]

"As of 5 April, Angolan health officials had reported 181 cases of Marburg haemorrhagic fever, of which 156 have been fatal. "

Oh my lord, that is one serious outbreak.

And in only 5 days!

[Route101]

Mother nature says.....I'll show you something!

[benjaminjjones]

In a country with a 36.79 year life expectancy at birth, a higher fatality rate is not really that surprising.

Living, hygiene, and health care conditions in Angola must be pretty poor to have such a Medieval life expectancy.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

"three-quarters of those affected have been children under five years of age:"

Vaccinations, maybe, but only 150 cases?

Another possibility is that little kids may not be so fast at swatting biting insects making a meal of blood.......it seems like vaccinations would be more widespread if they were the cause.......IMO dirty needles and dirty proboscus are at least equal, with the proboscus having the advantage of great media for keeping virus alive from meal to meal.......I know, I know, CDC and the homosexual lobby say otherwise!