Conakry, August 10 (AGP) – In Geneva, the World Health Organization has judged the threat “high” at the national and regional level, but “low” at the international level, concerning a first case of Marburg virus disease .
A first case of the highly virulent Marburg virus disease causing hemorrhagic fever has been recorded in Guinea, the first case in West Africa, the WHO and the Guinean government said on Monday.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization rated the threat “high” at the national and regional level, but “low” at the international level.
“Marburg virus disease, which belongs to the same family as the virus responsible for Ebola virus disease, was detected less than two months after Guinea declared the end of the Ebola epidemic that had erupted at the start of the year, ”the WHO African office said in a separate statement.
Information on the appearance of the virus in Guinea was confirmed by the Guinean government in a statement Monday evening.
“The investigation started on August 4, 2021 around the case did not reveal a suspected case of Marburg fever. However, 155 contact cases have been listed and followed up daily, ”he said.
“A concerted effort to prevent transmission”.
The case was detected in the prefecture of Guéckédou, in the south of the country, in a village located in a forest region close to the borders of Sierra Leone and Liberia. This is a man who died on August 2 and whose symptoms date back to July 25, the WHO said.
Samples taken from the patient and tested by a field laboratory in Guéckédou as well as by the Guinean national laboratory for hemorrhagic fever have tested positive for the Marburg virus.
Additional analyzes carried out by the Pasteur Institute in Senegal confirmed this result.
The patient had been treated in a clinic in the locality of Koundou in Guéckédou, where a team of medical investigators had been dispatched to study the worsening of his symptoms.
In a tweet, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted the need to implement “a concerted effort to prevent transmission and protect communities”.
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