Angola's Ebola-like illness targets children

An Ebola-like mystery ailment that has killed at least 39 people in Angola over the past three months is primarily targeting children under five, the UN health agency said today.

While the disease in Angola’s northern province of Uige has still not been identified, health officials believe the illness is an acute haemorrhagic fever related to the Ebola virus, said Dick Thompson, spokesman for the World Health Organisation.

But unlike Ebola, which tends to predominantly affect the adult population, four out of five cases of this new ailment have been children, Thompson said.

“With Ebola, the age distribution is generally quite different than what we are seeing here,” he said. “But we are not ruling Ebola out. We are not ruling anything out.”

The symptoms of the virus – including vomiting, bloody discharge and high fever – are similar to those for Ebola and dengue fever, according to the World Health Organisation.

Angolan officials have put the death toll at 64.