Tanzania Denies Suspected Marburg Outbreak After WHO Alert

Tanzania has dismissed a World Health Organisation (WHO) report of a suspected new outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus in the country. On Tuesday, WHO said a total of nine suspected cases, out of which eight died, were reported in the country's Kagera region. However, the Tanzanian health minister Jenista Mhagama countered it, saying all suspected cases were found negative of the Marburg virus. She added, "We would like to assure the international organisations, including WHO, that we shall always keep them up to date with ongoing developments. "

A new outbreak of Ebola-like Marburg virus is being suspected in northwest Tanzania. On Tuesday, the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announcing the Marburg outbreak said, "We would expect further cases in the coming days as disease surveillance improves. Notably, the first outbreak of the Marburg virus was reported in Tanzania in March 2023 in the Bukoba district, which killed six people and lasted for two months. However, for this outbreak, Tanzanian authorities are yet to confirm.

What Is Marburg Virus?

With a fatality rate of 8%, it is the same virus family as Ebola. The main carrier is from fruit bats which spreads to humans then through the contact of bodily fluids of infected individuals, it spreads to others.

What Are The Common Signs And Symptoms?

The common signs and symptoms of the Marburg virus include fever, pain, diarrhoea, vomiting and in the case of extreme blood loss, death too can happen. So far, there is no specific treatment or vaccine for the virus. However, treatments like drugs and immune therapy are being developed as per the WHO.

Origin

As per the WHO, this virus is capable of killing half of the people it infects. This was for the first time detected in 1976 after 31 people were infected. Out of them, seven died in simultaneous outbreaks in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany, and in Belgrade in Serbia. The virus is also named after the location where it was first detected.

The source was traced to African green monkeys who were imported from Uganda. However, other animals too are linked to the virus spread, including bats. In the past, the virus outbreaks have happened in countries like Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. In 2005, this virus killed 300 people in Angola.

However, for the rest of the world, only two people have died from the virus in the rest of the world, with one of them being in Europe, and the other in the US. These both have been on expeditions to caves in Uganda.

In 2024, it made headlines, when the outbreak was reported in Rwanda for which, the United States government also completed the shipment of vaccine doses and therapeutic drugs in October. The US government also worked with several international partners and Rwanda's Ministry of Health to start clinical trials to evaluate investigational countermeasures. In Rwanda, as of December 2024, it infected 66 people and killed 15. In a 2005 outbreak in Angola, it killed more than 300 people, however, in the rest of the world, outside the African continent only two people have died due to this virus in the past 40 years. One in Europe and one in the US.