Panic spread through Angola's capital yesterday after the worst recorded outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus, an Ebola-like condition that kills with massive internal bleeding, claimed its 150th life.

Many in Luanda, a city of 3.8 million people, withdrew their children from school. Shops ran low on supplies of bleach, which was bought by families to disinfect their water supplies.

State radio broadcast an emergency message every 10 minutes, saying: "Alert, Marburg. Don't touch any corpse. Inform the health authorities about any suspicious illnesses or death due to bleeding."

Angola's health ministry said that 163 cases of Marburg had been recorded so far. All are believed to have originated in the province of Uige, 180 miles north-east of Luanda, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Four people have died in the capital, all of whom are thought to have travelled from Uige.

An Italian doctor working in a Uige hospital is among the dead. At least three quarters of the victims are children under the age of 15.

"We have now started to deploy teams in the problem area," said Fatoumata Diallo, the World Health Organisation's representative in Luanda.

"We can get a real sense of the depth and the width of the problem.

"It's important to realise that Marburg is very new for us. It is serious since it is not well known.

"It is a threat because its symptoms are not well known. It has symptoms similar to malaria, amoebic dysentery or TB."

The Marburg virus is both incurable and highly infectious. The slightest contact with the bodily fluids of a victim spreads the condition. It causes fever, internal bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea and is deadly in the great majority of cases.

The outbreak in Angola is significantly worse than any previously recorded.

Marburg is believed to have originated among the monkey population in Congo and the first known transmission to humans occurred in 1967.

Angola's priority is to contain the outbreak and prevent the virus from spreading to Luanda.

Travel restrictions have been imposed on Uige province and the World Health Organisation is sending a team of 20 experts. An isolation ward in Luanda's Josina Machel hospital is being prepared, staffed by volunteer medical staff wearing protective suits.

It will not be ready, however, for a further five days. In the meantime, aid workers in Luanda have report that people have stopped shaking hands for fear of becoming infected.