WHO teams resuming virus work in Angola

LISBON, Portugal -- Health workers who left western Angola after they were attacked by residents fearful of a deadly Ebola-like virus have resumed efforts to contain the disease, the World Health Organization said Sunday.

Residents in Uige province had mistakenly feared the WHO teams were spreading -- instead of helping contain -- the rare Marburg virus, which has killed 184 people out of a total 200 people infected, WHO's spokesman in Angola, Dave Daigle, said.

"Three teams have already resumed activities and are now following up on anyone who had contact with infected people recently," Daigle said.

Like Ebola, which also has hit Africa, Marburg is a hemorrhagic fever. It spreads through contact with bodily fluids and can kill rapidly. There is no vaccine.

Daigle said the WHO had launched an education campaign to help contain the virus and prevent a recurrence of Thursday's attacks.

"We're doing radio announcements, meeting with church leaders and local authorities, to reach out to people and not only explain to them what we're doing but get their support," Daigle said.

Meanwhile Doctors Without Borders, a global relief organization that runs an isolation ward at a hospital for victims of the virus, has advised that the hospital should be closed to contain spread of the virus.

The organization's emergency coordinator in Uige, Monica de Castellarnau, characterized the situation as "very worrying." She said Doctors Without Borders was also attacked on Thursday.

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