NURSE DIES - S. AFRICA'S 1ST EBOLA VICTIM

South Africa's first victim of the deadly Ebola virus has died.

Regional health authorities said Marilyn Lahana, 46, a nurse who contracted the disease after treating a doctor from Gabon, died late Sunday.The doctor, Clement Mambana, had been admitted to a hospital with an unidentified fever in October. When he recovered and was discharged on Nov. 11, he was still undiagnosed as suffering from Ebola.

But blood samples later revealed his fever had been brought on by the Ebola virus.

Lahana became ill early this month and was diagnosed with Ebola, a deadly hemorrhagic virus that killed more than 240 people in an outbreak in Zaire last year.

She suffered a brain hemorrhage Friday night and was admitted to the intensive care unit of Johannesburg Hospital. She died Sunday.

About 800 people, most of them in Africa, have died of Ebola worldwide since the virus was identified in October 1976.

Ebola can be transmitted through bodily fluids and secretions, and causes massive internal bleeding, diarrhea and vomiting.

In 1995, it killed 245 people in Kikwit, Zaire, before the outbreak was finally halted. At least 13 people died of Ebola in Gabon in February, and a new outbreak in October killed at least 17 there.