2 years ago
According to the health ministry, five individuals have died from the Marburg virus in the Kagera region in the northwest of Tanzania.
The deadly Ebola-like virus typically causes bleeding and organ failure in addition to high fever.
Ummy Mwalimu, Tanzania's health minister, stated that the disease had been contained and would not spread further.
Three individuals are being treated in clinic and specialists are following 161 contacts, Ms Mwalimu added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) praised Tanzania's strategy to stop the spread. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO's regional director for Africa, said: The determination to effectively respond to the outbreak is evident in the health authorities' efforts to determine the disease's cause."
According to the World Health Organization, the Marburg virus, which is a member of the filovirus family and is a cousin of the equally deadly Ebola virus, kills on average half of those infected.
It is a severe illness that can be fatal and causes headaches, fever, muscle pain, blood in the stool, and bleeding.
The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that no vaccines or antiviral treatments have been approved to treat the virus; however, it added that oral or intravenous fluid rehydration has improved survival.
The Marburg virus: what is it?
The African continent has been the focus of recent Marburg infections and fatalities, where hundreds of people have died from the virus in the past.
After 31 people were infected and died simultaneously in Germany and Serbia in 1967, the virus was first identified.
The WHO reports that outbreaks have occurred since then in Guinea, Uganda, Angola, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Africa.
Last month, Equatorial Guinea reported its first outbreak. The WHO and local authorities claim that at least nine people have passed away.
In Ghana, the virus caused the deaths of two people in July, and 98 contacts were quarantined. The nation declared the outbreak over two months later.
The first case of the virus in West Africa was reported by health officials in Guinea in 2021, and more than 300 people were killed in an outbreak in Angola in 2005. The virus is typically carried by the Egyptian rousette fruit bat, but it can also be carried by African green monkeys and pigs.
It spreads to humans through contact with contaminated bedding and bodily fluids.
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