Equatorial Guinea has confirmed one other eight instances of the “extremely virulent” Marburg virus, a lethal hemorrhagic fever with no approved vaccine or remedy.
The World Well being Group on Thursday mentioned that brings the nation’s whole variety of instances to 9 within the outbreak declared in mid-February.
There are two recognized present outbreaks of Marburg on the African continent. Tanzania this week introduced eight instances of Marburg, together with 5 deaths. One of many folks killed was a well being employee.
“Our pathogen genomics workforce will sequence samples from each locations … and see if there’s a relationship between the present two outbreaks,” the performing director of the Africa Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, Ahmed Ogwell, informed journalists on Thursday. He mentioned outcomes needs to be recognized throughout the week.
The WHO mentioned the brand new instances in Equatorial Guinea have been discovered within the provinces of Kie Ntem, Litoral and Centro Sur, all with borders with Cameroon and Gabon.
“The areas reporting instances are about 150 kilometers (93 miles) aside, suggesting wider transmission of the virus,” the United Nations company mentioned.
Like Ebola, the Marburg virus originates in bats and spreads between folks by way of shut contact with the bodily fluids of contaminated folks, or surfaces, like contaminated mattress sheets. With out remedy, Marburg will be deadly in as much as 88% of people that fall in poor health with the illness.
Marburg outbreaks and particular person instances have up to now been recorded in Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Ghana, based on the WHO.
The uncommon virus was first recognized in 1967 after it triggered simultaneous outbreaks of illness in laboratories in Marburg, Germany, and Belgrade, Serbia. Seven folks died who have been uncovered to the virus whereas conducting analysis on monkeys.
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