Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.90.950511201229.11140A-100000@nywork2.undp.org> Date: Thu, 11 May 1995 20:14:52 -0400 From: Mike Gurstein <mailto:mikeg@NYWORK2.UNDP.ORG> Subject: WHO press release on Ebola To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L
H/2866
10 May 1995
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION TEAM INVESTIGATES FATAL OUTBREAK
OF HAEMORRHAGIC FEVER IN ZAIRE
GENEVA, 10 May (WHO) -- A team of medical experts of the World Health
Organization (WHO) has arrived in south-western Zaire to investigate a
disease outbreak in which at least 59 people have died. The cause, which
has still to be determined, could be due to the highly fatal Ebola virus.
The deaths include 10 medical staff, two of whom were Italian nuns working
in a local hospital.
A request for the WHO's assistance was received from Zaire, on Sunday,
7 May. The team is composed of experts from the WHO, from the United States
Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, the Pasteur Institute in
Paris, France, and the National Institute for Virology, Johannesburg, South
Africa. Their mission is to assist in confirming the diagnosis advise local
health officials on patient care and management, and assist in efforts to
contain the outbreak. Specimens have been sent for laboratory confirmation
to the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research at the Centers
for Disease Control in Atlanta.
The event leading to this action was an outbreak of bloody diarrhoea
that caused 189 cases and 59 deaths in Kikwit, Province of Bandundu in
south-western Zaire, near the border with Angola, between 1 January and
24 April. Shigellosis and typhoid fever have been suspected. In addition,
33 cases of suspected haemorrhagic fever have been reported in the same town
for the period of 6 February to 8 April.
Ebola virus, a highly fatal virus infection known to have occurred
previously in Zaire, is a possible cause of haemorrhagic fever. The virus
takes its name from the area of Zaire where it was first recognized in
outbreaks that happened there and in the Sudan in 1976 and 1979. A total of
more than 500 people were infected, with mortality rates as high as 80 per
cent. There have been no reports of Ebola virus outbreaks since then, but
in 1989 a virus similar to Ebola virus was detected in monkeys imported to
the United States.
Symptoms of the disease include the sudden onset of fever, followed by
vomiting and diarrhoea. The primary mode of person-to-person transmission
of
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10 May 1995
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.
Dr. Giorgio Torrigiani, Director of the WHO Division of Communicable
Diseases, said, "We have sent a team at the urgent request of the Government
of Zaire and will provide as much help as we can. In spite of the very high
mortality of Ebola disease, transmission of this virus does not occur
easily, and requires intimate contact with an infected person, such as close
nursing contact, or with contaminated materials."
The incubation period ranges from two to 21 days. No specific
treatment or vaccine exists. Patients are frequently dehydrated and need
intravenous fluids. Suspected patients should be isolated in a single room,
or if this is not possible, they should be isolated from other patients by a
barrier or screen. Strict barrier nursing techniques should be practised.
All hospital personnel should be briefed on the nature of the disease and
the routes of transmission. Particular emphasis should be placed on
high-risk nursing procedures, and hospital staff should have individual
gowns, gloves and masks. Gloves and masks must not be used unless
disinfected. Any person who has had close physical contact with patients
should be put under strict surveillance. Casual contacts should be place on
alert and asked to report any fever. All surveillance should be continued
for three weeks after the date of the contact. Hospital personnel who come
into close contact with patients or contaminated materials without barrier
nursing attire must be considered exposed and put under close, supervised
surveillance.
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