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- A man in Guinea, West Africa, died from Marburg virus, which causes internal bleeding and organ failure.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the disease has the potential to spread widely.
- The disease can be transmitted to humans by fruit bats, according to the WHO.
A man in Guinea, West Africa, died after contracting the Marburg virus, which causes internal bleeding and organ failure. The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the man’s death on August 9 and said the “highly infectious disease” has the potential to “spread everywhere.”
This is the first time that the Marburg virus has been detected in Guinea, according to the WHO.
According to the WHO, the man went to a local clinic for treatment, but his condition rapidly deteriorated before his death. Researchers from the national laboratory for hemorrhagic fever in Guinea and the Institut Pasteur in Senegal have confirmed the diagnosis of the Marburg virus in humans.
The WHO has said the virus can be transmitted to humans by fruit bats and is spread from person to person through surfaces and body fluids.
The organization said the illness tends to start with a sudden, sudden onset of a high fever and headache, with severe internal bleeding occurring within seven days. WHO currently sets the death rate between 24% and 88%.
“We applaud the vigilance and rapid investigative action of Guinean health workers,” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said in the organization’s August 9 statement.
“We are working with health authorities to implement a rapid response that builds on Guinea’s past experience and expertise in dealing with Ebola, which is similarly transmitted,” Moeti said.
Contact tracing efforts are underway to identify close associates of the deceased. In an interview with Reuters on August 10, Georges Ki-Zerbo, WHO’s country head in Guinea, said 155 people had been identified as close contacts. They will be observed, he said, for three weeks.
“It’s active surveillance. Contacts are kept at home, isolated from other family members. They are visited every day to check for potential symptoms,” Ki-Zerbo told Reuters.
“Overall, the approach to the fight against Marburg would not be different from Ebola. The only difference is that there is no vaccine or drug specifically directed against the virus. Only supportive care is available.” , did he declare.
The WHO has said the Marburg virus belongs to the same family of viruses as Ebola, which has a death rate of 50%. An Ebola outbreak in 2014 saw 28,600 infections and 11,300 deaths recorded in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Gueckedou, the prefecture of Guinea where the man died from the Marburg virus, is the same place where the 2021 Ebola outbreak in Guinea was first detected, the WHO said.
According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Marburg virus was first identified in 1967 after scientists working in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany and Belgrade, Serbia , fell ill. A total of 32 people were infected and seven deaths were reported at the time. The CDC said the virus came from scientists who had been exposed to the tissues of imported African green monkeys during their research.
However, fruit bats remain the “reservoir (hosts)” of Marburg virus, but do not show obvious signs of disease even when they are carriers of the disease, according to the CDC.
As of August 9, Guinea has reported a total of 27,112 COVID-19 cases and 263 deaths, with a weekly average of 150 new cases per day. Only 2.67% of the Guinean population has been fully vaccinated.
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