KIGALI, SEPT 29 – Six people have died in Rwanda in an outbreak of the Marburg virus, a highly contagious hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, the country’s health ministry said yesterday.
The highly virulent microbe causes severe fever, often accompanied by bleeding and organ failure.
About 20 patients are being treated for the disease, Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana told local media.
“Those infected and those who died are mostly health workers,” he said, adding that efforts are underway to trace and test those who have been in contact with them.
Marburg is part of the filovirus family that also includes Ebola, which has caused havoc in several previous outbreaks in Africa.
The neighboring country, Tanzania, reported a case of the disease in 2023, while Uganda had its last outbreak in 2017. All three countries have leaky borders.
The suspected natural source of Marburg virus is African fruit bats, which carry the pathogen but do not get sick from it.
The virus is named after the city of Marburg in Germany, where it was first identified in 1967 in a laboratory whose workers had come into contact with infected green monkeys imported from Uganda. – AFP
