Today, Tuesday, the World Health Organization held an urgent meeting on the Marburg virus, known as the “deadly disease”, which kills about 90 percent of those infected with it.
The British newspaper “Daily Mail” said that the organization today brought together health experts from all over the world to discuss ways to develop vaccines or treatments for the Marburg virus.
She added that today’s meeting was held in light of growing fears and warnings that “the world may be surprised by the disease that cannot be cured.”
“It could take months for effective vaccines and treatments to become available,” said members of the Marburg Virus Vaccine Consortium (MARVAC).
This comes as Equatorial Guinea announced its first outbreak of Marburg, after the death of at least nine people in Qui Ntim province.
The World Health Organization stated: “Further investigations are underway. Advanced teams have been deployed in the affected areas to trace contacts, isolate and provide medical care to people who show symptoms of the disease.”
The (MARVAC) team has identified, so far, 28 vaccine candidates to be effective against Marburg, highlighting that it will focus on 5 of them to see their effectiveness.
Like Ebola, the virus is considered “highly dangerous”, initially appearing in bats, and spreads among people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected people or surfaces.
The rare virus was first identified in 1967, after it led to simultaneous outbreaks in laboratories in Marburg, Germany, and Belgrade, Serbia.
