Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.90.950512184554.3884A-100000@nywork2.undp.org> Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 18:48:41 -0400 From: Mike Gurstein <mailto:mikeg@NYWORK2.UNDP.ORG> Subject: WHO Ebola Press Release II To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L
H/2867
11 May 1995
EBOLA VIRUS CONFIRMED IN FATAL ZAIRE OUTBREAK
GENEVA, 11 May (WHO) -- THe World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed
today that the Ebola virus is implicated in the outbreak of haemorrhagic
fever in Zaire which has caused at least 59 deaths. The confirmation is
based on the results of laboratory tests of specimens taken from patients in
Zaire, and sent to the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research
at the United States Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.
A WHO team of experts has arrived in Kikwit, the city at the centre of
the outbreak, some 300 kilometres east of the capital, Kinshasa. The
experts found the 350-bed city hospital abandoned but for about 20 ill
patients. In view of the dispersal of patients and staff from the hospital,
the WHO believes that more cases of Ebola disease will occur in the
vicinity. The WHO team has also heard reports of about 20 suspected cases
in a second hospital, about 100 kilometres south of Kikwit, which received
one of the patients from Kikwit.
Dr. Ralph Henderson, an Assistant Director-General at the WHO, said
"given that many patients have left the Kikwit hospital, we must expect some
additional transmission of the disease. However, we believe this will be
limited to people who are in prolonged intimate contact with sufferers of
the disease. It is unlikely that this outbreak will have implications for
Zaire as a whole or for international travel".
He said that two relatives of an Italian nun nurse who died in the
outbreak had returned to Italy from Zaire and were under close medical
surveillance, but were showing no symptoms of infection.
The WHO team is made up of about 10 experts from the WHO, from the
United States Centers for Disease Control, from the Pasteur Institute in
Paris and form the National Institute for Virology in Johannesburg, South
Africa. At the request of the Government of Zaire, they are investigating
the outbreak and assisting in efforts to contain it, as well as advising
local health officials on the care and management of patients. The WHO is
also providing sterile gowns and other equipment for medical staff in
Kikwit.
(more)
- 2 - Press Release H/2867
11 May 1995
Ebola virus was first identified in 1976 in Zaire. Ebola disease, a
form of haemorrhagic fever, is a very rare but highly fatal infection which
has had mortality rates as high as 80 per cent. The only reported outbreaks
were in Zaire and the Sudan in 1976 and 1979.
Symptoms of the disease include the sudden onset of fever, followed by
vomiting and diarrhoea. The primary mode of transmission of the virus is
contact with contaminated blood, secretions or body fluids. Contaminated
needles and syringes were a cause of transmission in previous cases in
Zaire. THe virus is not easily transmitted, however, and requires intimate
contact with an infected person, such as close nursing contact, or with
contaminated materials.
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