The central African country of Equatorial Guinea has been hit by an outbreak with the Marburg virus. Nine people have died.
In the African country of Equatorial Guinea, nine people have died from Marburg fever, a hemorrhagic fever as deadly as Ebola. In the east of the country, 200 people have been quarantined to contain the ‘epidemic’, the health ministry announced. Restrictions on movements apply throughout the province of Kie-Ntem. This is the first outbreak of the highly contagious virus in the country.
The Marburg virus is a rare but highly contagious pathogen. The disease is a zoonosis – a virus that jumps from other animals to humans – that has already been found in certain species of monkeys and bats.
The World Health Organization (WHO) met in emergency today, with representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, non-profit organizations, government and academia. The WHO has already decided to closely monitor the outbreak, including contact tracing, said the person responsible for the country.
No vaccine
There is no approved vaccine or antiviral treatment for the virus. The most important thing is to isolate the patients as soon as possible and trace all people with whom they have been in contact to prevent further spread. Transmission of the virus occurs – just like with Ebola – mainly through bodily fluids.
In 1967, the virus traveled unnoticed from Uganda with some vervet monkeys, a type of monkey, who were then taken to a German lab for other research. After contact with the monkeys, several lab workers fell ill. The virus was then isolated for the first time and named after the German city where the lab was located: Marburg. A total of 31 people became infected, seven of them died.
In 2008, a Dutch tourist died of the disease after visiting a cave with bats in Uganda.
Like the cause of Ebola, the virus is a filovirus. The symptoms are also similar. Patients experience high fever, severe vomiting, headache, muscle pain and blood in the stool. Depending on the variant of the virus and the patient’s treatment, the disease was fatal in 24 to 88 percent of cases in previous outbreaks.
