BEIJING, Mar. 30 -- Angola was faced with the worst outbreak ever recorded of a fulminating haemorrhagic fever caused by the Marburg virus as the death toll from the Ebola-like disease climbed to 126, official said.

    The government sought emergency help from international organizations and from the military, saying it did not have enough doctors to fight the Marburg virus.

    Four people including a baby died Monday alone in the epidemic, centred on the northern province of Uige bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    The disease kills around one in four who contract it, and a specific treatment is unknown.

    ¡°We have not only asked the military for help, but also from around the world, national and international, in the fight against Marburg,¡± said Luanda¡¯s provincial health director Vita Mvemba.

    He said Angola faced a serious shortage of doctors countrywide and specifically in the battle against Marburg which broke out last October, killing mainly children, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). ¡°There are not more than 1,200 doctors in the country. In certain provinces, like Kuando Kubango (south), only two,¡± Mvemba said.

    Health ministry spokesman Carlos Alberto said a young girl aged less than two died Sunday evening in Uige, north of the capital city of Luanda.

    On Monday, two policemen and another man died in Uige province while a baby aged one year died in a Luanda hospital.

    The most serious recorded outbreak of the disease was in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo between 1998 and 2000, when 123 people died.

    A severe form of haemorrhagic fever akin to Ebola, the Marburg virus was first identified in 1967 in a laboratory in the German town of the same name. The disease can spread on contact with body fluids such as blood, urine, excrement, vomit and saliva.

    Three-quarters of the deaths have been children under the age of five, but the virus has also started to claim adult victims including at least seven medical workers.

    (Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)