3/10/2024Updated yesterday at 12:10|Source: ČTK, Nature, WHO, Bild
Marburg virus under an electron microscope, colored
Two people were examined in Hamburg for suspicion of infection with the life-threatening hemorrhagic fever Marburg, but the disease was not confirmed for them on Thursday. Due to suspicion, one of the platforms of Hamburg’s main station was closed for several hours on Wednesday, German media reports. According to the Hamburg social services office, one of the persons under investigation recently worked in Rwanda in a hospital where people infected with this virus were treated, the DPA agency reported.
The DPA agency wrote that two people were transported by a special car from Hamburg Central Station to the hospital due to a possible infection. That’s what they were for according to Bild newspaper the seventh and eighth tracks were closed for several hours and passengers had to leave the platform. Paramedics in special suits intervened on the ICE train that arrived from Frankfurt am Main.
According to DPA, one man had flu-like symptoms and felt slightly nauseous. But he didn’t have a fever. The man arrived from abroad, where he was treating a patient with an infectious disease, according to media information.
According to Bild, the problems for the pair, a medical student and his girlfriend, became apparent during a trip to Hamburg. There were reportedly 200 passengers on their train. Meanwhile, the temporary closure of part of the station in the northern German capital has been lifted.
A terrible disease
According to the WHO, the mortality rate for Marburg virus varies between 24 and 88 percent, depending on the strain of the virus and how the infection is managed. Marburg is transmitted to humans by bats and is spread between humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals. In 2018, scientists in Sierra Leone found live bats infected with the virus, but no human cases have been confirmed. Symptoms include headache and muscle pain, bleeding from various body openings, and vomiting of blood.
The virus was first identified in 1967 during two epidemics that occurred simultaneously in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany, and Belgrade, Serbia. The outbreak was linked to laboratory work with monkeys imported from Uganda.
The largest outbreak to date occurred in Angola in 2005, when 374 people were infected with the virus and 329 died, representing an 88 percent mortality rate.
No defense
Against the Marburg source there is no approved treatment or vaccine. Thus, apart from supportive therapy, there are no approved vaccines or specific treatments available. Scientists have already tested several experimental vaccines, but none of them proved to be effective, or provided protection only for a very short period of time and were therefore not practically applicable.
In areas of Africa where the disease is most prevalent, a single-dose vaccine that could protect recipients for long periods of time would be a crucial part of controlling epidemics.
But we are still working on that. Last year, scientists they reported in the journal The Lancetthat the experimental Marburg virus vaccine works. It is safe and has produced an immune response in test subjects. It was developed by scientists at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), who hope that this vaccination could one day become an important tool in responding to outbreaks of this virus.
The first phase 1 human trial tested the experimental vaccine, which is currently labeled Ad3-Marburg. This new vaccine uses a modified cAd3 chimpanzee adenovirus that can no longer replicate or attack cells. It targets a glycoprotein found on the surface of the virus and thereby triggers an immune response.
