On Thursday, Fiona Braka, the World Health Organization’s emergency response chief, said five of the eight localized confirmed cases in Tanzania, East Africa, have died from Marburg disease.
In Equatorial Guinea, West Africa, local authorities have confirmed 7 of 9 deaths since 13 February.
“We should be able to reduce the risks associated with this outbreak,” Braka said, with both countries testing and isolating suspected cases, educating the public about health risks, and warning countries with borders near the outbreak. I emphasized that
Tanzania’s chief medical officer, Tumaini Nag, said authorities were checking temperatures of travelers passing through the border town of Bukoba, which has a small airport and sits on the shores of Lake Victoria.
Equatorial Guinea Health Minister Mitoha Ondoo Aikaba said four cases were confirmed in the port city of Bata, which is also the country’s second largest city. He said the cases were spread across three districts and authorities were conducting contact tracing for all confirmed cases. He said anyone who has been in contact with a confirmed case will be quarantined for 21 days.
Atlanta-based center Disease Control and Prevention helped set up a lab there and test results were available within an hour, he said.
Marburg has historically killed between 24% and 88% of confirmed cases. according to To WHO, depending on the strain of virus involved and the quality of case management. No approved treatment or vaccine exists.
The virus is not airborne, but can be spread through contact with bodily fluids such as the blood, saliva, or urine of an infected person. It can also be transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, tables, doorknobs, and other objects.
It was caused by an animal-borne RNA virus in the same Filoviridae family as Ebola virus and killed thousands during an outbreak that health workers struggled to control. Both diseases are rare but have a high fatality rate.
Marburg is african flying foxAlthough it is usually asymptomatic, it can infect primates and can spread to people working in mines or visiting caves. It is named after the city of Marburg, Germany, where autopsies were performed on African green monkeys.
Africa has seen small, sporadic outbreaks of Marburg disease affecting a few individuals every few years, with some cases among foreign tourists visiting caves in Uganda or Kenya. The last outbreak occurred in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo about 20 years ago.
An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released Monday warns that scientists believe climate change is driving and exacerbating disease outbreaks.
Marburg is deadly, but far rarer than other diseases, including cholera in the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy, the longest-lived, most relentless, and most energetic tropical storm on record. The same cyclone hit Mozambique on the East African coast twice, he said.
“We have seen the link between climate change and disease outbreaks,” said Macidiso Moeti, Africa Director at the World Health Organization. “When extreme weather events occur, people move … and end up in a highly precarious situation where epidemics spread.”
In Mozambique, reported cholera cases have almost quadrupled since early February to nearly 10,700, according to UNICEF, which said on Monday more than 2,300 cases were reported in the last week alone. .
