The number of the Marburg virus epidemic that has raged in Equatorial Guinea for more than two months has reached 20 deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday, Malabo has counted six more deaths in ten days. .
• Also read: “Imminent” risk of a global water crisis
The identified cases poured from Kié-Ntem province, where they had caused the first known deaths on January 7, until they reached Bata, the economic capital of this small Central African country, part island and the other continental.
This expansion “suggests a broader transmission of the virus” and requires “intensified response efforts to (…) avoid a large-scale epidemic and loss of life,” the WHO warned in a statement.
Here are 14 things you should know about the virus
- It belongs to the filovirus family, which also includes the Ebola virus;
- It causes hemorrhagic fever;
- This fever is almost as deadly as Ebola;
- It affects multiple organs and decreases the body’s ability to function properly;
- This virus is transmitted to humans by flying foxes;
- Animals can transmit it to primates living near them, including humans;
- It spreads in the human species through direct contact with bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces and materials;
- The mortality rate of confirmed cases in previous epidemics ranged from 24 to 88% (with an average of just under 50%), depending on the virus strain and the treatment of the patients, according to the WHO;
- There are no approved vaccines or antiviral treatments to treat the virus;
- Supportive measures – oral or intravenous rehydration – and treatment of specific symptoms increase the chances of survival;
- A number of potential treatments, including blood products, immunotherapies and drugs, and vaccine candidates with phase 1 data are being evaluated, according to the WHO;
- The last Marburg virus outbreak in Uganda was in 2017;
- The virus takes its name from the German city of Marburg;
- It was first identified in 1967 in a laboratory where staff had come into contact with infected vervet monkeys imported from Uganda.
The epidemic is therefore now raging in three of the four mainland provinces, from the east to the Atlantic. According to the government, Bata, the port city with around 250,000 inhabitants open to the Gulf of Guinea, is “affected”.
Efforts by WHO-backed authorities to contain the virus in Kié-Ntem were therefore not enough. “Additional WHO experts (…) will be deployed in the coming days,” the UN organization promises, adding that it is “also helping Gabon and Cameroon to strengthen preparedness and response to the epidemic.”
Tanzania also announced on Tuesday the start of an outbreak in Marburg that has killed five people.
Uganda, which borders Tanzania, immediately urged health officials to increase vigilance along the border.