South African health authorities are on high alert after three people died in hospital from an unknown, infectious disease similar to hemorrhagic fever, REUTERS quoted health officials as saying. A fourth person, a cleaner, had also died but it was not clear whether that case was related to the others who all died at the Morningside Clinic in Johannesburg, the hospital's spokeswoman Melinda Pelser said on Monday. There are several strains of hemorrhagic fever, including Ebola and Marburg, which have killed hundreds of people in outbreaks in Africa. The diseases cause bleeding from multiple sites and can have very high death rates. The South African Health Department issued an alert over the weekend after the deaths but Morningside spokeswoman Pelser said tests for existing strains of hemorrhagic fever were negative. Pelser said hospital officials were investigating an unknown flu-like disease which caused external and internal bleeding. It spreads through bodily fluids but there are no signs it is airborne. The first death was a Zambian woman brought to Morningside for treatment. A paramedic who accompanied her later died, health authorities said. Ebola is rare, but there is no known cure and the virus usually kills between 50-90 percent of its victims. It is spread through contact with bodily fluids of a patient. As with other hemorrhagic fevers, patients die from dehydration, bleeding, and shock. The latest outbreak, which ended in February in Uganda, was unusually mild, killing 37 people out of 149 infected. A previous outbreak in Uganda in 2000 killed more than half of 425 people infected and a 2006 outbreak in neighbouring Congo infected 264 people, killing 187. Marburg has similar characteristics. At least 150 people died in an epidemic in Angola in 2004 and 2005.
