Five dead as Tanzania confirms outbreak of Marburg virus disease

Tanzania has confirmed an outbreak of Marburg virus disease with at least five already confirmed dead in Bukoba District, Kagera, south of the country.

“So far five deaths and 7 suspected cases with symptoms including fever, fatigue and blood-stained vomit and diarrhoea have been reported,” a brief statement by the Tanzanian Health Ministry read on Friday, March 17.

Authorities in the largest East African nation sent samples to the reference laboratory to determine the cause of the disease after an alert by district health officials.

The Ministry added that advance teams have been deployed in the affected districts to trace contacts, isolate and provide medical care to people showing symptoms of the disease. 

Marburg virus (MARV) is a hemorrhagic fever virus of the Filoviridae family of viruses and a member of the species Marburg marburgvirus, genus Marburgvirus. It causes Marburg virus disease in primates, a form of viral hemorrhagic fever. The virus is considered to be extremely dangerous.

The World Health Organization (WHO) rates MARV as a Risk Group 4 Pathogen (requiring biosafety level 4-equivalent containment). In the United States, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ranks it as a Category A Priority Pathogen and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists it as a Category A Bioterrorism Agent. It is also listed as a biological agent for export control by the Australia Group.

The virus can be transmitted by exposure to one species of fruit bats or it can be transmitted between people via body fluids through unprotected sex and broken skin. (wiki)

Since its initial recorded outbreak in West Germany during a 1967 lab leak, Marburg Virus has killed about 550 people over the course of 17 incidents with the deadliest being in 2004 in Angola.

During that outbreak, 374 cases were recorded in which 329 people died for a case fatality rate of 90%. There is no prominent vaccine.