Ten days ago Ghana Reported Their First-ever Suspected Cases of Marburg Virus Disease, after two patients - deceased and unrelated - showed symptoms including diarrhea, fever, nausea and vomiting. Marburg, like Ebola, is an often-fatal hemorrhagic fever from the filovirus family.
Initial testing was positive for Marburg, but samples were sent to the Institut Pasteur in Senegal - a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre - for confirmation.
Endemic in central Africa (see map above), last year (2021) a single case of Marburg was detected for the very first time in West Africa (Guinea). This is the 3rd high profile infectious disease (along with Ebola & Monkeypox) - previously found in central Africa - to turn up in the more densely populated West African region over the past 8 years.
First a press release from WHO Africa, after which I'll return with a brief follow-up on a similar outbreak in Tanzania.Ghana declares first-ever outbreak of Marburg virus disease
17 July 2022
Accra/Brazzaville - Ghana has announced the country’s first outbreak of Marburg virus disease, after a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre laboratory confirmed earlier results.
The Institut Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal received samples from each of the two patients from the southern Ashanti region of Ghana – both deceased and unrelated – who showed symptoms including diarrhoea, fever, nausea and vomiting. The laboratory corroborated the results from the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, which suggested their illness was due to the Marburg virus. One case was a 26-year-old male who checked into a hospital on 26 June 2022 and died on 27 June. The second case was a 51 -year-old male who reported to the hospital on 28 June and died on the same day. Both cases sought treatment at the same hospital within days of each other.
WHO has been supporting a joint national investigative team in the Ashanti Region as well as Ghana’s health authorities by deploying experts, making available personal protective equipment, bolstering disease surveillance, testing, tracing contacts and working with communities to alert and educate them about the risks and dangers of the disease, and to collaborate with the emergency response teams. In addition, a team of WHO experts will be deployed over the next couple of days to provide coordination, risk assessment and infection prevention measures.
“Health authorities have responded swiftly, getting a head start preparing for a possible outbreak. This is good because without immediate and decisive action, Marburg can easily get out of hand. WHO is on the ground supporting health authorities and now that the outbreak is declared, we are marshalling more resources for the response,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
More than 90 contacts, including health workers and community members, have been identified and are being monitored.
Marburg is a highly infectious viral haemorrhagic fever in the same family as the more well-known Ebola virus disease. It is only the second time the zoonotic disease has been detected in West Africa. Guinea confirmed a single case in an outbreak that was declared over on 16 September 2021, five weeks after the initial case was detected.
Previous outbreaks and sporadic cases of Marburg in Africa have been reported in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda. WHO has reached out to neighbouring high-risk countries and they are on alert.
Marburg is transmitted to people from fruit bats and spreads among humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, surfaces and materials. Illness begins abruptly, with high fever, severe headache and malaise. Many patients develop severe haemorrhagic signs within seven days. Case fatality rates have varied from 24% to 88% in past outbreaks depending on virus strain and the quality of case management. Although there are no vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat the virus, supportive care – rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids – and treatment of specific symptoms, improves survival. A range of potential treatments, including blood products, immune therapies and drug therapies, as well as candidate vaccines with phase 1 data are being evaluated.
Meanwhile, roughly 2,500 miles to the south-east in Tanzania, doctors are dealing with an as-yet unidentified disease causing `Ebola-like' symptoms (see Tanzania MOH: 13 Patients With Unknown Hemorrhagic Disease In Lindi - 3 deaths).
Based on local media reporting (see FluTrackers Thread), local laboratory testing has eliminated Ebola, Marburg, and COVID as possible causes.
Tanzania, which has a history of being less than forthcoming about disease outbreaks (see here, here, and here), appears to be reluctant to send samples to a lab outside of their country for analysis. This from the East Africa Today news site.
Tanzania: Govt – We Can Diagnose Infectious Diseases
July 18, 2022 East Africa Today
(Excerpt)
Speaking in Kilimanjaro yesterday during the launch of the state of the art laboratory at Kibong’oto Specialised Infectious Diseases, Ms Mwalimu said: “There have been reports requesting our specimens and want them to be tested outside the country… the VP has seen our modern lab, we have equipment and experts to detect communicable diseases in our country … I will travel to Lindi on Monday (tomorrow) and I believe that we will have answers on the disease affecting our people in the region.”
She further said that the ministry has allowed experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to join Tanzanian team on identifying the disease.
(Continue . . . )
Hopefully we'll have some answers soon. Stay tuned.
