NOS News•
An outbreak of the Marburg virus has been detected for the first time in Equatorial Guinea. The outbreak of the contagious virus has so far killed nine people, reports the World Health Organization (WHO).
Sixteen people are believed to be infected with the virus. They have symptoms such as a so-called haemorrhagic fever and heavy bleeding in the vomit and faeces.
According to the country’s authorities, the infections can be traced back to a funeral in the province of Kié-Ntem in the north of the West African country. Nearly 200 people have been quarantined. The WHO has made resources available to prevent a further outbreak and to provide healthcare workers with good material.
survivability
“It is a very deadly virus and the disease starts very abruptly. Eventually, all your organs can fail and internal bleeding can occur,” says Alma Tostmann epidemiologist at Radboudumc in the NOS Radio 1 Journal.
The epidemiologist states that the chances of survival of the virus are related to the speed with which people are treated. “If you can combat the symptoms early, you increase your chances of survival. That is why it is important that you are there at an early stage and that you quickly have an idea of the extent.”
Ebola family
The virus is in fruit bats, which can have a wingspan of up to one and a half meters. What you see in Africa is that someone gets infected by such a bat. Sometimes it remains an incident and sometimes an outbreak occurs.”
The Marburg virus comes from the same virus family as the deadly Ebola virus. Just like with that virus, people transfer it to each other through bodily fluids such as blood and saliva. The virus was discovered in 1967 when laboratory workers, mainly in Marburg, Germany, contracted the disease after contact with infected tissue from monkeys from Uganda.
