The African republic of Angola, in the grip of a worsening viral epidemic of Marburg, fears that the virus, till now confined to the northern province of Uige, since first reported in October 2004, would have reached the country's capital, Luanda. The virus, unlike its previous onsets, has been proving to be lethal to children. It has already taken a toll of more 115 lives so far.
Responding to the critical situation in the country, Canada has sent an international expert on hemorrhagic fevers, Dr. Heinz Feldmann, he heads the special pathogens program based at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, to help control the epidemic. Dr. Feldmann, assisted by laboratory technician Allen Grolla, will function as part of a WHO-sponsored Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network team of epidemiologists and infection-control combining lab professionals with great expertise.
The team will have a sophisticated portable laboratory at its disposal, capable of DNA analysis of blood samples.
The Marburg virus belongs to the same family as that of the deadly Ebola virus. The initial symptoms of infection include low fever and headache, but the fever progresses while severe muscular pain sets in leaving the victim totally debilitated. This stage is followed by hemorrhage from lips and eyes and from several internal organs. The disease, which spreads through physical contact and through blood transfusion, has no known cures and vaccines. It is supposed to have originated at Marburg in Germany in 1967 where laboratory workers were infected by monkeys.
A WHO spokesman welcomed the Canadian initiative and said scientists such as Dr. Feldmann are essential for controlling epidemics and outbreaks of disease.
Besides his research work, Dr. Feldmann has active field experience too. He was part of a team that tackled an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003 and the Marburg outbreak that killed 123 people there during 1998-2000. He was one of the scientists who ventured to a Hong Kong apartment again in 2003 after it was detected that nearly 200 people there were infected with the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
