Scary news from Angola: Marburg virus

Sharon LaFraniere and Denise Grady report in the New York Times:

LUANDA, Angola, April 8 - The death toll in Angola from an epidemic caused by an Ebola-like virus rose to 174 Friday...

International health officials said the epidemic, already the largest outbreak of Marburg virus ever recorded, showed no signs of abating...

Health officials said some Angolans are hiding sick relatives out of fear that they will die if taken to the hospitals, thereby increasing the chance the disease will spread. There is no cure or vaccine for the highly contagious virus. Victims suffer a high fever, diarrhea, vomiting and severe bleeding from bodily orifices and usually die within a week. UPDATE: THE PREVIOUS TWO SENTENCES SEEM TO HAVE BEEN COPIED FROM WIKIPEDIA AND THEY ARE WRONG: Click here: Dinocrat » Note to the New York Times: Don’t use Wikipedia as an authoritative source

The initial outbreak appears to have spread through a pediatric ward...More than 60 percent of the victims so far have been children.

One health official in Uige said that more than a dozen health care workers have perished...

It must take incredible courage for them to stay on the job.