Marburg Fatality Rate Above 99% - Case Count Accelerates to 175
Recombinomics Commentary
April 5, 2005
The Red Cross monthly breakdown of cases and deaths indicate that the case fatality rate for Marburg was greater than 99% at the end of March. For the first four months of the outbreak (Oct 2004 - January 2005), there were 34 cases and 34 deaths for a case fatality rate of 100%.
In the month of February there were 31 cases and 30 deaths. It is not clear if the 1 person alive was discharged or still in the hospital when the table was compiled. There is no column for discharged patients, possibly because there were none.
In the month of March there were 53 cases in Uige and 22 more cases in other provinces. 68 of these 75 patients had died. However, at the end of March media reports described 7 newly admitted cases, accounting for the 7 patients listed as alive. Thus, there was no outcome yet for those 7. Therefore, for known outcomes, assuming the February patient was discharged, there were 132 deaths among the 133 outcomes for a case fatality ratio of 99.3 %. If the patient from February has not been discharged, the fatality rate is 100%.
The data also show the dramatic increase in the number of monthly cases. In January there were 20, 31 in February, and 75 in March.
However, the case count is growing even faster in April with 35 cases in the first four days.
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