Marburg cases in Equatorial Guinea leap to nine after five deaths in Tanzania

Equatorial Guinea on Thursday confirmed eight new cases of Marburg disease, bringing the total to nine.

This follows Tanzania confirming five deaths in its first-ever cases of the high-fatality viral hemorrhagic fever on Tuesday.

The two countries are on opposite coasts of Africa and separated by the vast DRC, almost 3,000km across.

Confirmation of the disease by Tanzania’s national public laboratory followed the death of five of eight people in the country’s northwest Kagera region who developed symptoms — which include fever, vomiting, bleeding and renal failure — the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.

Among the dead was a health worker, the WHO said.

The three who survived were getting treatment, with 161 contacts being monitored.

“The efforts by Tanzania’s health authorities to establish the cause of the disease is a clear indication of the determination to effectively respond to the outbreak,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa.

“We are working with the government to rapidly scale up control measures to halt the spread of the virus.”

With a fatality rate of as high as 88%, Marburg is from the same virus family responsible for Ebola and has broadly similar symptoms, including high fever, severe headache and malaise, which typically develop within seven days of infection.

Marburg is transmitted to people from fruit bats. It then spreads through contact with bodily fluids of infected people.

Early supportive care with rehydration, and symptomatic treatment improves survival.

There is as yet no licensed treatment proven to neutralise the virus, but a range of blood products, immune therapies and drug therapies are currently under development, said the WHO.