An outbreak of haemorrhagic fever in northern Angola has so far killed 96 people, many of them children, Angola's deputy health minister said on Tuesday. (Photo: Baidu)

    BEIJING, Mar. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- An outbreak of haemorrhagic fever in northern Angola has so far killed 96 people, many of them children, Angola's deputy health minister said on Tuesday.

    The disease, whose symptoms are fever, vomits and bleeding diarrhea, has been confirmed that it was caused by the Marburg virus.

    The Marburg virus, a severe form of haemorrhagic fever in the same family as Ebola, was first recognised in 1967 and is indigenous to Africa, affecting both humans and primates.

    This virus has an incubation period of between five and ten days, with patients suffering increasingly severe fever symptoms.

    An infection may also cause jaundice, inflammation of the pancreas, rapid weight loss, shock delirium, and massive haemorrhaging and organ dysfunction.

    The first of the latest cases of the mystery illness were detected in Uige in November. 

    Angolan deputy health minister Joseph Van Dunem said results from 12 samples sent to the US Centres for Disease Control had detected the virus.

    "We have received the results," Van Dunem told a news conference. "We are dealing with the Marburg virus."

(Agencies)