No new Marburg cases in Rwanda for two weeks
Published: Thursday, Nov 14th 2024, 11:30
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In Rwanda, there is growing hope that the Marburg virus outbreak is coming to an end. No new cases of the deadly virus have been reported since the end of October, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.
If no further cases are detected in the 42 days following the recovery of the last patient, the outbreak could be declared over. This period corresponds to twice the incubation period of the virus.
The East African country reported the outbreak at the end of September. The virus can cause high fever and symptoms such as muscle pain, abdominal cramps, diarrhea and bloody vomiting.
According to the WHO, 66 Marburg cases have occurred since the outbreak began. 15 patients have died. The majority of infections affected medical staff in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. A suspected case of the Marburg virus in two people in Hamburg was not confirmed.
According to the Ministry of Health, the outbreak began as a result of transmission from fruit bats to workers near a mining site. The pathogen bears the name of the Hessian city of Marburg because laboratory workers there were infected with the previously unknown virus in experimental monkeys in 1967.
©Keystone/SDA
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