What is Marburg virus: Everything you need to know about the highly infectious disease

So what precisely is the illness, and will we be fearful about it in Australia? Here’s every part that you must learn about Marburg virus illness.

Marburg is a extremely infectious viral haemorrhagic fever in the identical household because the better-known Ebola illness.

In addition to being extremely contagious, the virus can be lethal to people. In earlier outbreaks the place there was a couple of confirmed case, the fatality charge has ranged from 23 to 90 per cent.

Marburg virus illness signs enhance in severity over time.

According to the WHO, the sickness, which may final from two to 21 days, “begins abruptly, with high fever, severe headache, and severe malaise”, and muscle aches and pains are widespread as nicely.

Soon after, the illness can result in extreme watery diarrhoea – which can, in some circumstances, be bloody – in addition to belly ache and cramping, nausea and vomiting, excessive lethargy, and a non-itchy rash.

In deadly circumstances, loss of life normally happens on the eighth or ninth day of the sickness, after sufferers go into shock following bleeding from a number of areas and extreme blood loss.

Other signs can embody:

How does the illness unfold?

The virus is transmitted to people from fruit bats and may then be unfold through human-to-human by direct contact with the bodily fluids of contaminated folks or surfaces and supplies contaminated with these fluids.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) mentioned on February 14 that it was rising its epidemiological surveillance in Equatorial Guinea.

The small Central African nation had, by that point, reported 9 deaths in addition to 16 suspected circumstances of Marburg virus illness, with signs together with fever, fatigue, and blood-stained vomit and diarrhea, in line with the WHO.

“Surveillance in the field has been intensified,” George Ameh, the WHO’s nation consultant in Equatorial Guinea, mentioned.

“Contact tracing, as you know, is a cornerstone of the response.

“We have … redeployed the COVID-19 groups that had been there for contact tracing and rapidly retrofitted them to essentially assist us out.”

During a mid-2022 outbreak of the disease in Ghana, the WHO warned early action was crucial in preventing the spread.

“Without instant and decisive motion, Marburg can simply get out of hand,” the WHO’s Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said at the time.

What is the treatment for Marburg virus?

Unfortunately, there is no vaccine or proven treatment against the disease.

However, a patient’s chances of survival can be improved with care including oral or intravenous rehydration and treatment of specific symptoms, according to the WHO, and the health body is currently evaluating a number of potential treatments which it describes as “promising”.

What is the origin of the disease?

Marburg virus was identified in 1967, following two simultaneous outbreaks in Germany and Yugoslavia among lab workers who had handled African green monkeys imported from Uganda.

While the outbreak was traced back to the Ugandan monkeys, the host of the virus is the African fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus. The species is not found in Australia, nor have any cases of the disease ever been recorded here.

Since 1967, there have been 15 outbreaks of the virus, most of which occurred in Central, Eastern and Southern Africa.

The worst outbreak occurred in 2004 and 2005 in Angola, where 227 people died with the disease.

– Additional reporting by CNN and Associated Press