Health

Deadly Ebola Outbreak In Gabon

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 9, 2001 / 5:56 PM EST / CBS

Gabon has cordoned off a remote forest village to stop an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus thought to have killed at least 10 people in the central African country, health authorities said Monday.

The World Health Organization confirmed the outbreak Sunday in the remote northeastern province of Ogooue Ivindo, where 45 people were killed when Ebola last struck in 1996-97.

Medical experts have ruled out the possibility of a separate outbreak of Ebola in Congo, where an unidentified fever has killed at least 17 people, the government there said Monday. Congo is near Gabon, although the two countries have no common borders.

All the deaths reported so far in Gabon appeared to have occurred last week, and the toll was rising as experts were getting a better idea of the extent of the outbreak, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva.

Information about the outbreak remained sketchy, Hartl said. Health officials in Gabon did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

It was not immediately clear how many people were infected, or over what period. The disease is usually fatal.

Villagers had reported an unusual number of dead primates — including gorillas and chimpanzees — in the dense forests of Ogooue Ivindo, World Wildlife Fund representative Allogo Ndong said in the capital, Libreville.

Around the same time, patients began turning up with symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea.

While researchers do not know what causes Ebola outbreaks, the virus is believed to be carried by some animals and insects, who may pass it on to humans.

A team from the Ministry of Health and the International Center of Medical Research in the eastern city of Franceville went to the province last week to investigate. WHO also sent experts to Gabon.

Ebola kills up to 90 percent of victims in some epidemics. There is no vaccine and no known cure.

The disease is passed on through contact with bodily fluids. Victims suffer from aches and fever similar to flu before developing severe headaches, stomach pains and diarrhea.

Only in the final stages -- when the virus eats through victims' veins and arteries and blood courses from their bodies -- is it clear that Ebola has struck.

The only route into Mekambo is a rough road through thick rainforest, but reports of the deaths have set people on edge across the country of 1.2 million.

The most recent major outbreak of Ebola killed more than 170 people in Uganda last year. A 1995 epidemic in the town of Kikwit in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) is thought to have killed more than 250.