LUANDA, April 30 (Xinhuanet) -- The outbreak of Marburg, an Ebola-like hemorrhagic fever, has killed 257 people in Angola since it broke out in October 2004, local media reported on Saturday.

    According to a press release jointly issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Health Ministry of Angola on Friday, a total of 277 cases have been recorded, of which 266 were in the northwestern province of Uige, the epicenter of the outbreak.

    The epidemic has been largely limited to Uige, about 300 km north of the capital Luanda. Up to now deaths totaled 246, and a further 526 people remain under surveillance, the release said.

    Experts from the WHO and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as groups like the nonprofit Medecins Sans Frontieres, are working to help contain the deadly virus.

    The Marburg virus can kill a healthy person in a week by diarrhea and vomiting followed by severe internal bleeding, and isnot treatable with any known drugs.

    In the last known outbreak of Marburg, 123 people were killed in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo between 1998 and 2000. Enditem