International health specialists battling an outbreak of Marburg virus in Angola suspect unorthodox medical practices by local traditional healers may be contributing to the spread of the deadly disease.
The experts suggest that the healers, who lack medical training and supplies but substitute for doctors in many rural African communities, are administering injections in homes or in makeshift clinics with reused needles or syringes.
In the northern Angolan province of Uige, where 233 people have died of the Marburg virus, epidemiologists say they must convince people that such practices can mean death.
Pierre Formenty, an expert in hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg and a member of the World Health Organization's (WHO) team in Uige, said on Saturday that unsafe injections could explain why an average of three people per day continued to die of the Marburg virus a full month after the outbreak was identified and international teams arrived in Angola to battle it.
Although it is not clear what solutions the healers are injecting, specialists said, the virus can easily be transmitted from an infected to an uninfected person through a contaminated needle or syringe.
"I would say it is bit bizarre that we still have these high numbers per week," Formenty said in a telephone interview with reporters.
He said medical workers had developed a campaign against injections at home "asking people to use other kinds of medicines or to come to hospital or the health center to have a safe injection with new devices."
Another health care worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, insisted that unnecessary shots are common in the province.
"There is a notion in Africa that if you haven't been given an injection, you haven't been treated," the worker said.
Formenty and other specialists said that while intense efforts to track possible cases and limit the potential for transmission of the virus were clearly helping to curtail the epidemic, it still was not clear whether the outbreak had peaked. At least 244 people have died of the virus so far, all but 11 of them in Uige.
"I would say that it's just a gut feeling that maybe things are going better in the sense that people are reporting more and more systematically the deaths," Formenty said.
Other encouraging signs, international specialists said, include the arrival on Thursday of a 28-member Angolan medical team in Uige and the opening of a fever ward at the provincial hospital, which had to be closed for disinfection.
"Certainly we are breaking the chain of transmission," said Mike Ryan, head of the WHO's alert and response operations.
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
EUROPEAN FUTURE? Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama says only he could secure EU membership, but challenges remain in dealing with corruption and a brain drain Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama seeks to win an unprecedented fourth term, pledging to finally take the country into the EU and turn it into a hot tourist destination with some help from the Trump family. The artist-turned-politician has been pitching Albania as a trendy coastal destination, which has helped to drive up tourism arrivals to a record 11 million last year. US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also joined in the rush, pledging to invest US$1.4 billion to turn a largely deserted island into a luxurious getaway. Rama is expected to win another term after yesterday’s vote. The vote would
ALLIES: Calling Putin his ‘old friend,’ Xi said Beijing stood alongside Russia ‘in the face of the international counter-current of unilateralism and hegemonic bullying’ Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday was in Moscow for a state visit ahead of the Kremlin’s grand Victory Day celebrations, as Ukraine accused Russia’s army of launching air strikes just hours into a supposed truce. More than 20 foreign leaders were in Russia to attend a vast military parade today marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, taking place three years into Russia’s offensive in Ukraine. Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022 and has marshaled the memory of Soviet victory against Nazi Germany to justify his campaign and rally society behind the offensive,
CONFLICTING REPORTS: Beijing said it was ‘not familiar with the matter’ when asked if Chinese jets were used in the conflict, after Pakistan’s foreign minister said they were The Pakistan Army yesterday said it shot down 25 Indian drones, a day after the worst violence between the nuclear-armed rivals in two decades. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to retaliate after India launched deadly missile strikes on Wednesday morning, escalating days of gunfire along their border. At least 45 deaths were reported from both sides following Wednesday’s violence, including children. Pakistan’s military said in a statement yesterday that it had “so far shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones” at multiple location across the country. “Last night, India showed another act of aggression by sending drones to multiple locations,” Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed
RSS