As the East African nation continues to look into the origin of an outbreak initially identified among patients in medical facilities, Rwandan health authorities said that 11 individuals have died from Marburg hemorrhagic fever. According to the most recent report from the Rwandan government, there are 36 confirmed cases of the disease, which presents similarly to Ebola, with 25 of them in isolation.
Six fatalities were recorded by Rwanda a day after the epidemic was proclaimed on September 27. At the time, authorities stated that an investigation was being conducted "to determine the origin of the infection" after the first instances were discovered among patients in medical facilities. Days later, the cause is still unknown, which has the small country in central Africa worried about contagion. The key to halting the spread of viral hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg is isolating patients and their contacts.
According to local health authorities, at least 300 persons have been recognized as having come into contact with those who have been proven to have Marburg, and an unknown number of them are currently in isolation facilities.
To assist stop the spread, Rwandans have been asked to refrain from making physical contact. Healthcare workers in six of the country's thirty districts make up the majority of those impacted.
The U.S. Embassy in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, has advised its employees to work from home rather than going to the office. Similar to Ebola, the Marburg virus is thought to have its origins in fruit bats and is transmitted from person to person via close contact with an infected person's bodily fluids or contaminated surfaces, such bed linens. In as many as 88% of cases, Marburg can be lethal if treatment is not received.
Fever, muscle aches, diarrhea, vomiting, and, in rare instances, death from severe blood loss are among the symptoms. According to the WHO, there have previously been reports of Marburg outbreaks and isolated cases in Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, and Ghana.
Following concurrent sickness outbreaks in labs in Belgrade, Serbia, and Marburg, Germany, the virus was initially discovered in 1967. Exposure to the virus during monkey study resulted in the deaths of seven persons.
