CNN Indonesia
Saturday, 25 Feb 2023 16:06 WIB
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Marburg virus, which is still in the same family as Ebola, has a mortality rate of up to 88 percent. (NIAID via Wikimedia Commons ( CC-BY-2.0 ))
Jakarta, CNNIndonesia —
The Health Service of Valencia, Spain, announced they had found one suspected case of the virus Marburg on Saturday (25/2). The findings mark Spain’s first suspected case of the deadly disease which has kept more than 200 people in Equatorial Guinea under quarantine.
Reported Reutersthe first suspected case of Marburg in Spain is a 34-year-old man who recently traveled to Equatorial Guinea.
The man has been transferred from a private hospital to an isolation unit at Hospital La Fe in Valenccia while undergoing further tests.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Marburg virus, which is still in the same family as Ebola, has a mortality rate of up to 88 percent. So far, there is no vaccine or medicine to control this virus.
Meanwhile, Equatorial Guinea has quarantined more than 200 people and implemented restrictions on February 13 in Kie-Ntem Province.
The province was the first location where the Marburg virus was confirmed on February 7, then there were 24 suspected cases on February 14 with nine of them dying.
According to WHO, the suspected cases had symptoms of infection such as fever, fatigue, vomiting blood, and diarrhea. The findings in the country occurred for people who attended a funeral ceremony in the Nsok-Nsomo District, Kie-Ntem Province.
The case of the Marburg virus in Equatorial Guinea is the umpteenth time on the African continent.
In 2021, this outbreak had appeared in Guinea and then with one case, then appeared in Ghana with four cases in 2022, and now Equatorial Guinea with one case.
Marburg virus is a virus that causes dengue fever in primates. This virus is considered dangerous and can be transmitted from exposure to fruit bats, bodily fluids through unprotected sex, or even wounds.
This virus was first identified in 1967 in Marburg, Germany. At that time, a number of cases of infection occurred in Marburg, Frankfurt, and the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade.
After Germany, the Marburg case first appeared in Africa in 1975 in South Africa to be precise, then in Kenya in 1980 and 1987; then in the Soviet Union in 1988; then in the Congo in 1998-2000; Angola in 2004-2005; Uganda in 2007-2008; Netherlands in 2008; Uganda in 2012, 2014, and 2017; and Guinea in 2021.
(Reuters/end)
