Officials from the World Health Organization wearing protective gear
against the Ebola virus as they prepare to enter Kagadi Hospital in
Uganda in 2012. Two people have died from the Marburg virus in the
country.
KAMPALA
Two
people have died from the Marburg virus in eastern Uganda, in the
country's first outbreak of the deadly Ebola-like pathogen in three
years, the health ministry said.
"Blood
samples were taken from two people who have since died and were found
positive for Marburg", Uganda's health ministry permanent secretary, Dr.
Diana Atwine said.
She said a team of experts had been sent to Kween district, near the Kenyan border, to contain the virus.
"At
moment we don't know if there are other people apart from the dead who
have contracted the disease because the health experts are still
investigating in addition to sensitising the population about the
dangers of Marburg and we call for public vigilance," she added.
One individual was a male hunter who died on September 25. His 50-year-old sister died on October 11.
"The
second victim had taken care of her brother during his sickness and
burial preparation rituals when we suspect she contracted the disease,"
Health Minister Ruth Achieng said.
The two are the first recorded cases of Marburg in Kween district.
According
to the Uganda Virus Research Institute, the first known case of Marburg
in the country was in the western district of Kamwenge in 2007.
A 2012 outbreak killed 10 people and in 2014 one man died.
DEADLY
The
Marburg virus is one of the most deadly known pathogens. Like Ebola, it
is a haemorrhagic fever — it causes severe bleeding, fever, vomiting
and diarrhoea. It has a 21-day incubation period.
Like
Ebola, the Marburg virus is also transmitted via contact with bodily
fluids and fatality rates range from 25 to 80 per cent.
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The
name of the disease comes from the city of Marburg in central Germany,
where the virus was first identified in 1967 among workers who had been
exposed to infected African green monkeys at a research lab.
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