Marburg virus disease

The WHO called an emergency meeting earlier this week to discuss a plan of action to tackle the often-fatal virus.

Thanks to the rapid and decisive action by the Equatorial Guinean authorities in confirming the disease, emergency response can get to full steam quickly so that we save lives and halt the virus as soon as possible." There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat the virus. said: "Marburg is highly infectious. At least nine people have died so far after contracting the lethal illness. Many patients develop severe haemorrhagic symptoms within seven days. [virus](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/health/) and what's being done to curb the spread.

Marburg virus is hard to detect early on--and goes on to kill about half its victims. Researchers hope to work quickly during this outbreak to make progress ...

"So far, the outbreak is confined to Equatorial Guinea, therefore the current risk to people in the United States is extremely low." "The CDC is working closely with the World Health Organization to monitor the current outbreak of Marburg virus disease (MVD) in Equatorial Guinea," Scott Pauley, a spokesperson for the CDC, tells NPR. "Health-care workers are at particular risk, and in Equatorial Guinea and surrounding countries, illness and death of the relatively few doctors and nurses they have would have tremendous lasting impact on health in their region." [AfricaCDC](https://africacdc.org/news-item/press-release-on-marburg-virus-disease-in-equatorial-guinea/), released earlier this week, is that Equatorial Guinea has one confirmed case of Marburg as well as nine deaths and 16 suspected cases from two communities in the Kie Ntem province in the northwestern part of the country. Leana Wen, ](https://publichealth.gwu.edu/departments/health-policy-and-management/leana-wen-md-msc_faaem)an emergency physician and professor at the Milken School of Public Health at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., says there's one more urgent reason a vaccine must be prioritized. Fran Kritz is a health policy reporter based in Washington, D.C., and a regular contributor to NPR. As is the case with Ebola, burial ceremonies have sometimes been a source of infection if people come in contact with secretions of someone who died of the virus. In fact, while the health officer in Equatorial Guinea suspected Marburg on February 7, the viral sample had to be sent to Senegal, 2,000 miles away, and was only confirmed a week later. David Freedman,](https://scholars.uab.edu/display/freedman) professor emeritus of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, because many poor countries just don't have labs to test disease samples. "But an outbreak is your opportunity to see if a vaccine can potentially work in people at risk of contracting the virus." It is "similar to many other illnesses which is why Marburg can spread before it's identified and before infected people are isolated," says Bausch. Daniel Bausch, ](https://www.finddx.org/about-us/people/secretariat/daniel-bausch/)a former U.S.

At least nine people tested positive for the haemorrhagic fever after their deaths, and another 16 are suspected to have the disease. Their symptoms include ...

But the fatality rate varies widely by outbreak, and has ranged from 23% to 90%, [according to the CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/marburg/symptoms/index.html). Many past cases of Marburg occurred among those who mined in bat-infested caves in Africa, [according to the CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/marburg/about.html#:~:text=Marburg%20virus%20disease%20(MVD)%20is,virus%20of%20the%20filovirus%20family.). The list was last updated in 2019, and a revised list should be released in the first quarter of this year, It was also identified once in Russia, in 1990, as a result of lab contamination, and in the Netherlands, in 2008, in a Dutch woman who had recently traveled to Uganda. Generally, Marburg requires close physical contact to spread, “and similar to the many large Ebola outbreaks that have occurred in Africa in the past several years, it’s unlikely to cause a global pandemic.” Jay Varma](https://www.kroll.com/en/our-team/jay-varma), chief medical adviser at the New York-based think tank Kroll Institute, tells Fortune. The only other members of the family are the six known species of Ebola, which can cause [nearly identical symptoms](https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/marburg/about.html#:~:text=Marburg%20virus%20disease%20(MVD)%20is,virus%20of%20the%20filovirus%20family.). While African fruit bats are natural hosts for the virus, the first identified cases of Marburg occurred outside of Africa, oddly enough—in 1967, at labs in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany, and in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia). It can be difficult for doctors to tell Marburg apart from malaria, typhoid fever, dengue, or other viral hemorrhagic fevers like Lassa fever or Ebola, especially if there are no other suspected cases in the area. Three cases were confirmed, with two deaths—all among the same household, according to the WHO and CDC. Their symptoms include bloody vomit and diarrhea, fever, and fatigue, according to a Monday update from the World Health Organization. At least nine people tested positive for the haemorrhagic fever after their deaths, and another 16 are suspected to have the disease.

A Marburg virus outbreak has been identified in Equatorial Guinea, sparking an urgent meeting by the World Health Organisation (WHO) over concerns that the ...

The samples, which were tested by a field laboratory in Gueckedou as well as Guinea’s national haemorrhagic fever laboratory, came back positive for the virus. Advertisement As of 16 February, nine deaths have been reported in Equatorial Guinea in people whose symptoms were consistent with the virus.