KIGALI, Rwanda
Rwanda says at least eight people have died from the Ebola-like, highly contagious Marburg virus, just days after the country declared an outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever that has no authorized vaccine or treatment.
Like Ebola, the Marburg virus
originates in fruit bats and spreads among people through close contact with
the bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces, such as
contaminated bedsheets.
Rwanda, a landlocked country
in central Africa, declared an outbreak on Friday.
So far, 26 cases have been
confirmed, and eight of the sickened people have died, Health Minister Sabin
Nsanzimana said late on Sunday.
The public has been urged to
avoid physical contact to help curb the spread, but some 300 people who came
into contact with those confirmed to have the virus have also been identified.
An unspecified number of them
have been put in isolation facilities and most of the affected are healthcare
workers across six out of 30 districts in the country.
“Marburg is a rare disease,”
Nsanzimana told journalists. “We are intensifying contact tracing and testing
to help stop the spread.”
The minister said the source
of the disease has not been determined, adding that a person infected with the
virus can take between three days and three weeks to show symptoms.
Symptoms include fever, muscle
pains, diarrhoea, vomiting and, in some cases, death through extreme blood
loss.
The World Health Organization is scaling up its support and will work with Rwandan authorities to help stop the spread, WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Saturday on the social media platform X.
Marburg outbreaks and
individual cases have in the past been recorded in Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea,
Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and
Ghana, according to the WHO.
The rare virus was first
identified in 1967 after it caused simultaneous outbreaks of disease in
laboratories in Marburg, Germany, and Belgrade, Serbia. Seven people died who
were exposed to the virus while conducting research on monkeys.
Separately, Rwanda has
reported six cases of mpox,
a disease caused by a virus related to smallpox but that typically causes
milder symptoms.
Mpox has also affected several
other African countries in what the WHO has declared a global health emergency.
Rwanda launched an mpox
vaccination campaign earlier this month, and more vaccines are expected to
arrive in the country.
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