(ORDO NEWS) — WHO experts have reported two deaths associated with Marburg virus infection.
There is no cure for this virus, and in 80% of cases people fail to survive. So far, this virus is only in West Africa, but who knows where it can get.
The Marburg virus is a member of the Filoviridae family of viruses . Like the Ebola virus, Marburg infection results in severe hemorrhagic fever with a mortality rate of 24 to 88 percent.
According to the WHO, two potential new cases of the virus have occurred in the southern Ashanti region of Ghana.
The patients were taken to a local hospital in the region with symptoms such as diarrhea, fever, nausea and vomiting.
The patients were not related to each other and subsequently died from the disease. Preliminary analysis of samples taken from patients gave positive results for Marburg virus.
The WHO standard procedure is now to send these samples to the WHO headquarters in Senegal for confirmation.
Deadly African virus
Prior to this, Marburg virus had only been detected in West Africa once. At the end of 2021, a farmer in Guinea died of an infection, but after careful surveillance by the WHO, no new cases were identified for several months.
Since first appearing in the German city of Marburg in 1967, there have been little more than a dozen outbreaks of this deadly infection.
The worst outbreak occurred in 2004/05 in Angola. By the time the outbreak was under control, 252 people had been infected and 90 percent of them had eventually died.
The Marburg virus is less studied than its better-known relative Ebola, but both viruses share similarities. Infection occurs through body fluids, and the incubation period can last from 5 to 21 days.
Severe hemorrhagic signs appear seven days after the onset of symptoms, and there are currently no treatments, vaccines, or antivirals for this pathogen.
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