Marburg Toll in Angola Rises to 344
Recombinomics Commentary
May 19, 2005
The May 17 Angola Ministry of Health reports shows the Marburg toll in Angola rising to 344, due to the addition of 4 new reported cases and 4 new deaths, all in the city of Uige on May 16. These new cases increase the death toll to 298.
However, the latest update from WHO indicates that as of May 17, the number of reported cases fell to 337, while the number of reported deaths rose to 311. These gyrations in the daily numbers remain highly suspect. The criteria for removing most of the cases outside of Uige, and the almost daily discarding of cases inside Uige have not been defined. The exclusion of patients bases on a negative from a single cheek swab collected under far from ideal conditions, creates favorable daily bulletins, but serious undercounts.
These undercounts translate into reduced monitoring. The number of cases being monitored has fallen to 129 in the May 17 report. All are in the province of Uige, and all but 10 are in the city of Uige (5 each in Buengas and Bembe).
False negatives and poor monitoring have set the stage for a major bird flu pandemic in the fall. A repeat of these practices in Angola should be avoided.