Posted on 04/25/2005 2:04:06 PM PDT by neverdem
JOHANNESBURG, April 24 - International health specialists battling an outbreak of Marburg virus in Angola suspect that unorthodox medical practices by local traditional healers may be contributing to the spread of the deadly disease.
The experts suggest that the healers, who lack medical training and supplies but are a substitute for doctors in many rural African communities, are administering injections in homes or in makeshift clinics with reused needles or syringes.
In the northern Angolan province of Uíge, where all but 11 of the 244 deaths reported in the outbreak have occurred, epidemiologists say they must convince people that such practices can be fatal.
Dr. Pierre Formenty, an expert in hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg and a member of the World Health Organization's team in Uíge, said on Saturday that unsafe injections could explain why an average of three people per day continue to die of the virus a full month after international teams arrived in Angola to battle it.
Although it is not clear what solutions the healers are injecting, specialists said, the virus can easily be transmitted from an infected to an uninfected person through a contaminated needle or syringe.
"I would say it is bit bizarre that we still have these high numbers per week," Dr. Formenty said in a telephone interview. He said medical workers had developed a campaign against injections at home "asking people to use other kinds of medicines or to come to hospital or the health center to have a safe injection with new devices."
Another expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, insisted that unnecessary shots were common, saying, "There is a notion in Africa that if you haven't been given an injection, you haven't been treated."
Dr. Formenty said that while intense efforts to track possible cases and limit the potential for transmission of the virus were helping to curtail the epidemic, it was not clear whether the outbreak had peaked.
"I would say that it's just a gut feeling that maybe things are going better in the sense that people are reporting more and more systematically the deaths," Dr. Formenty said. Other encouraging signs, experts said, include the arrival on Thursday of a 28-member Angolan medical team in Uíge and the opening of a fever ward at the provincial hospital.
"Certainly we are breaking the chain of transmission," said Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization's alert and response operations. "This is the most critical time now in the response, now that we are beginning to get things under control," he said.
When asked why it took a month for Angolan health authorities to send a significant team of specialists to Uíge, Dr. Ryan said only that the authorities had been worried the epidemic would spread to Luanda, where crowded conditions and an international airport could help the virus spread out of control, and to elsewhere in Angola.
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I wonder what the Marberg death rate is among these Angolan 'healers'? If they're that careless in their practices, how many of them are deceased by now?
Yikes!
I know quite a few smart people from Africa, but there are still a lot of ignorant people there...and to think they've had a couple million years headstart on us...[/rolling eyes here
Weren't we talking about 255 deaths last week and that number was after they took out of the number of deaths that they thought were not marburg.
Why do they keep playing with the numbers? They must think that nobody is paying attention.
Just like antibiotics here with some people.
Marburg Ping
Yikes! These same practices do wonders for the spread of HIV also.
I would imagine that some of these "healers" are people who are known to have helped out at some of the local clinics, and who made off with some syringes.
Even in the regular health clinics, re-use of needles was common, and may STILL be--in some cases they are rinsed, re-sharpened, and used again.
China, after all, responding to some of the
WHO -tated needs of Angola, dropped off boxes of gloves, masks, disposable gowns, IV sets, etc. at the Luanda airport. Don't think any Chinese got off the plane, though...they say they'll send more. I'm sure what they sent is gone gone gone, sold and resold on the black market.
kindly read that as "Who-stated needs..."
Thanks.
why an average of three people per day continue to die of the virus a full month after international teams arrived in Angola to battle it.
Odd isn't it, that's 21 per week but the numbers stay the same.
As the man says, "It's just a gut feeling...."
Criminently!
Kindly read that as "WHO-stated needs..."
Sheesh!
> If they're [the healers] that careless in their
> practices, how many of them are deceased by now?
Most of the stupid ones, who buy their own BS that
a. the injections convey any benefit, and
b. the re-use of needles is safe.
The con-healers are all still alive.
My (uneducated) guess is this outbreak started in a regional daycare center.All initial victims were under age 7-most were under 5.
Angola is a "socialist" regime,(if the hammer and sickle flag is any guide),and probably has such day care centers all over the boondocks,as a way of keeping a finger on the pulse of the villages.
Outbreak was multiple-as opposed to single index patient.
Some possibilities: On site contamination;contamination of powdered milk (accidental or otherwise);deliberate bio-attack.
Any thoughts,anyone ?
My thought is that a needle contaminated from an unknown index Marburg patient was used to vaccinate children, since over 80% of the initial victims were children under 5.
During afternoon snack of Monkey brain cookies and curdled cow blood.
Thanks for the ping.
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