Ghana official confirms the end of Marburg outbreak

• Ghana’s Marburg virus outbreak ends after 42 days with no positive tests.
• Three people infected, two of whom died, including a father and his 14-month-old child.
• Almost 200 contacts of the three infected people were tracked down, but none displayed symptoms.

Ghana has declared that the recent Marburg virus outbreak has ended after 42 days with no positive tests.

After two deaths, authorities first alerted the public to the outbreak of the highly infectious disease, which is related to Ebola, in July. One of them was later found to have been misdiagnosed.

In total, three people became infected with the virus, with two of them dying: a father and his 14-month-old child. The third individual, the mother, recovered and tested positive in August.

Almost 200 contacts of the three infected people were tracked down, but none of them displayed any symptoms.

“Ghana is safe,” Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, Director General of the Ghana Health Service, told journalists in Accra on Friday.

He went on to express gratitude to the World Health Organization and other partners who assisted the country in dealing with the outbreak.

“Despite having no previous experience with the disease, Ghana’s response has been rapid and robust,” the AFP news agency quotes WHO Africa head Dr Matshidiso Moeti as saying.

This was the second time Marburg was discovered in West Africa.

Last year, there was one confirmed case in Guinea, but the outbreak was declared over five weeks later, in September.

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