What to know about Marburg virus disease | Explained News,The Indian Express

There have only been two cases of Marburg virus disease this year, both reported in Ghana. For now, health researchers have said that there was no indication that the virus had spread further. What is the Marburg virus, what are its symptoms and should we be worried about it?

Written by April Rubin

Ghana announced the country’s first outbreak of Marburg virus disease after two people who were not related died June 27 and 28. Word of a new outbreak of a lethal disease caused by viral infections added to the concerns of a public weary from battling the coronavirus pandemic and recently alarmed by the spread of monkeypox and a new case of polio.

Doctors and public health experts in the country immediately started searching for anyone who had been exposed and investigating the cause of the spread in an effort to contain infection. For now, health researchers in Ghana and in other parts of the world said that there was no indication that the virus had spread further.

Marburg was first detected in 1967, when outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany, and in Belgrade, in what is now Serbia — in cases that were linked to African green monkeys imported from Uganda. Other cases have since been found in Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda, according to the World Health Organization. Last month’s cases in Ghana were the first recorded in that country.

The Marburg virus is the pathogen that causes Marburg virus disease in humans, health experts said.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/marburg-virus-disease-cases-symptoms-8048320/

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