Officials confirm first case of Marburg virus in West Africa
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Health officials in Guinea have confirmed the first-ever case of Marburg virus in West Africa, WHO said.
The patient, who has since died, sought treatment at a local clinic in the Koundou area of the Guéckédou prefecture, where a team of investigators had been dispatched to investigate his “worsening symptoms,” according to WHO.
Samples taken from the patient tested positive at a field laboratory in Guéckédou and Guinea’s national hemorrhagic fever laboratory, and the results were later confirmed by the Pasteur Institute in Senegal.
“We applaud the alertness and the quick investigative action by Guinea’s health workers. The potential for the Marburg virus to spread far and wide means we need to stop it in its tracks,” WHO Regional Director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti, MD, MPH, said in a statement. “We are working with the health authorities to implement a swift response that builds on Guinea’s past experience and expertise in managing Ebola, which is transmitted in a similar way.”
According to WHO, efforts are being made to identify people who may have had contact with the patient, and local health authorities are launching efforts to raise awareness of the disease. Cross-border surveillance is also being increased to better detect any cases, and neighboring countries are on alert, WHO said.
The case was recorded near the borders of Libera and Sierra Leone, the other two countries at the center of the West African Ebola epidemic.
Marburg virus is transmitted to humans from fruit bats. Like Ebola, which comes from the same family of viruses, it is spread between people via direct contact with bodily fluids or contaminated surfaces or materials.
The virus is named for Marburg, Germany, one of three cities — including Frankfurt, Germany, and Belgrade, Serbia — where the virus was first identified in 1967 during an outbreak among laboratory workers conducting experiments using African green monkeys.
Previous outbreaks have been reported in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda, WHO noted. Although a human case had never been detected in West Africa before now, researchers had in recent years identified Marburg virus in West African bats for the first time.
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