Graphic showing details of the deadly Ebola-like Marburg virus. Angola has officially put the toll from the deadly Ebola-like Marburg virus at 126, the world's highest, as Canada sent a mobile laboratory to help investigate suspected cases.(AFP photo)

BEIJING, Apr. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Angola on Thursday officially put the toll from the deadly Ebola-like Marburg virus at 126, recording the highest death toll in the world.

    "We have recorded a total of 132 cases between 13 October 2004 and 30 March 2005, of whom 126 have died," a joint statement by Angola's health ministry and the World Health Organisation said.

    The joint statement by the government and the Who said 16 people had been placed under medical observation in the oil-rich Cabinda enclave in the north-west, after coming into contact with a pregnant woman who came from Uige and died on Saturday in the provincial hospital of Cabinda.

    The communique also said Canada had sent a mobile laboratory to investigate cases of the virus.

    Three-quarters of the deaths in Angola have been children under the age of five, according to the Who, but the virus has also started to claim adult victims since it erupted in October.

    But Quiala Godi, the number two health official in the northern province of Uige - the epicentre of the virus - said the toll was higher in the region alone.

    "I don't agree with the figures given by Luanda," he said over the telephone.

    "Until yesterday, we had a total of 132 cases, including 125 dead only in the provincial hospital of Uige without counting five bodies elsewhere," he said.

    "Luanda is not updating the figures," he said.

    A severe form of haemorrhagic fever akin to Ebola, the Marburg virus was first identified in 1967. It spreads on contact with the fluids the body produces in reaction to it, such as blood, urine, excrement, vomit and saliva.

    The Marburg virus causes a nameless disease with symptoms like those of Ebola.

    Four African nations -- Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Kenya and the western island country of Sao Tome and Principe -- have meanwhile gone on alert in the wake of the outbreak in Angola.

    Luanda's provincial health director Vita Mvemba on Monday appealed for international assistance, saying the southern African country, which only recently emerged from a brutal 27-year civil war, had only 1,200 doctors nationwide.

    (Agencies)