Marburg virus kills five people in Tanzania

• Five people have died from the Marburg virus in Tanzania.
• Which is related to the Ebola virus.
• And kills about half of those who contract it.

Five people have died from the Marburg virus in Tanzania’s Kagera district, according to the health ministry.

The fatal Ebola-like virus frequently causes high fever, which is followed by hemorrhage and organ failure.

The sickness has been confined, according to Tanzania’s health minister Ummy Mwalimu, who expressed confidence that it won’t spread further.

According to Ms. Mwalimu, three persons are receiving hospital treatment, and police are tracking 161 contacts.

The World Health Organization applauded Tanzania’s approach to containing the outbreak. (WHO).

WHO’s regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said: “The efforts by Tanzania’s health authorities to establish the cause of the disease is a clear indication of the determination to effectively respond to the outbreak.”

Dr. Moeti said WHO is working with Tanzania’s government to “rapidly scale up control measures to halt the spread of the virus”.

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According to the WHO, the Marburg virus, which is related to the similarly deadly Ebola virus and belongs to the filovirus family, kills about half of individuals who contract it.

It is a serious illness that frequently results in death and has symptoms like headache, fever, muscle cramps, vomiting blood, and bleeding.

The WHO has said that there are no licensed vaccines or antiviral medications to treat the virus, but it also notes that rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids has increased survival.

The African continent, where hundreds of people have already perished from the virus, has seen the majority of recent Marburg cases and fatalities.

After 31 people contracted the virus and passed away at the same time in Germany and Serbia, the virus was first discovered in 1967.

The virus is frequently carried by the Egyptian rousette fruit bat, although it can also be found in African green monkeys and pigs.

It spreads among people by contact with contaminated bedding and bodily fluids.According to the WHO, outbreaks have since occurred in Guinea, Uganda, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, and South Africa.

The first incident in Equatorial Guinea was reported last month. At least nine people have passed away, according to the WHO and local authorities.

In Ghana, where the virus claimed the lives of two persons in July, 98 contacts were isolated. The nation deemed the outbreak to be over two months later.

Health officials in Guinea verified the virus’s first case in West Africa in 2021, while a pandemic in Angola in 2005 claimed more than 300 lives.

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