Guinea confirms West Africa’s first case of Marburg disease

• The lethal virus, that’s related to Ebola, like Covid-19, passeS from animal hosts to humans.
• The virus, which is carried by bats and has a fatality rate of up to 88 percent, was found in samples taken from a patient who died on 2 August in southern Gueckedou prefecture as per WHO.
• The discovery comes just two months after the WHO declared an end to Guinea’s second outbreak of Ebola, which started last year and claimed 12 lives.

Marburg virus disease

• It is a rare but severe hemorrhagic fever which affects both humans and non-human primates.
• It is caused by Marburg virus, a genetically unique zoonotic (or, animal-borne) RNA virus of the filovirus family.
• Marburg virus was first recognized in 1967, when outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany and in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia).
• Both Marburg and Ebola viruses are members of the Filoviridae family (filovirus).
• Though caused by different viruses, the two diseases are clinically similar.
• Both diseases are rare and have the capacity to cause outbreaks with high fatality rates.
• Previous outbreaks and sporadic cases have been reported in South Africa, Angola, Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• But this is the first time the virus has been detected in West Africa.

Transmission

• Initially, human MVD infection results from prolonged exposure to mines or caves inhabited by Rousettus bat colonies.
• Marburg spreads through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.

Signs and Symptoms

• After an incubation period of 5-10 days, symptom onset is sudden and marked by fever, chills, headache, and myalgia.
• Around the fifth day after the onset of symptoms, a maculopapular rash, most prominent on the trunk (chest, back, stomach), may occur.
• Nausea, vomiting, chest pain, a sore throat, abdominal pain, and diarrhea may then appear.
• Symptoms become increasingly severe and can include jaundice, inflammation of the pancreas, severe weight loss, delirium, shock, liver failure, massive hemorrhaging, and multi-organ dysfunction.