Marburg: Finally Over?
It appears that the Marburg epidemic in Angola has burned itself out. WHO continues to do its usual fine job of not reporting the stats well, with the last country wide update being from June 5. One additional update in June, specific to the province where nearly all the cases happened.
Anyway, I’ve updated my data at my Marburg page. The final death rate appears to be about 84%, with the death rate since the virus was identified lower at 81.6%. That’s not too bad, given the level of cultural and medical sophistication in the country.
I guess all those pleas for additional research monies were effective. [/sarcasm]
My guess about an outbreak in the U.S., it “could” happen, would be a death rate of less than 50%. Maybe down to 33%, which would put it in the area of the projected toll from smallpox. I would also venture to guess that we would have far fewer cases overall.
