Update July 20, 2022: The World Health Organization has confirmed Marburg viruses in the two patients who died recently.
The Institut Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal received samples from each of the two patients from the southern Ashanti region of Ghana – both deceased and unrelated – who showed symptoms including diarrhea, fever, nausea, and vomiting.
The laboratory corroborated the results from the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, which suggested their illness was due to the Marburg virus. One case was a 26-year-old male who checked into a hospital on 26 June 2022 and died on 27 June.
The second case was a 51 -year-old male who reported to the hospital on 28 June and died on the same day. Both cases sought treatment at the same hospital within days of each other.
More than 90 contacts, including health workers and community members, have been identified and are being monitored.
Marburg is a highly infectious viral haemorrhagic fever in the same family as the more well-known Ebola virus disease. It is only the second time the zoonotic disease has been detected in West Africa. Guinea confirmed a single case in an outbreak that was declared over on 16 September 2021, five weeks after the initial case was detected.
Source: World Health Organization
Those 90 contacts can potentially test positive for the Marburg virus. Marburg is one particular disease that lockdowns, quarantines, and full personal protective equipment are justifiable.
The World Health Organization in Africa reported two cases of Marburg virus infection in Ghana.
Ghana has announced the preliminary finding of two cases of #Marburg virus disease and if confirmed these would the first such infections recorded in the country
➡️ https://t.co/GrjuK7itmw pic.twitter.com/SiariKqRI3— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) July 7, 2022
According to the Daily Mail, two people are believed to have died from Ghana’s highly deadly Marburg virus as officials gear up for a potential outbreak.
The patients from the country’s southern Ashanti region were not known to each other, suggesting the disease is spreading more widely.
Initial tests came back positive for the virus, and the samples are being reanalyzed by the World Health Organization (WHO).
If confirmed, it would mark only the second time Marburg has been detected in West Africa, after a small outbreak in Guinea last year.
The W.H.O. is sending experts to support Ghanaian health officials in tracking down the close contacts of the victims.
What is the Marburg Virus Disease?
The Marburg virus can cause a hemorrhagic fever like the Ebola virus but far deadlier with an almost 90% infection fatality rate.
It was first detected in an outbreak in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany, among laboratory workers studying African green monkeys.
Rousettus aegyptiacus, fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family, are considered natural hosts of the Marburg virus.
The Marburg virus is transmitted to people from fruit bats and spreads among humans through human-to-human transmission.
The incubation period ranges from 2-21 days, and the clinical outcome can be broken down into three phases: initial generalized phase (day 1-4), early organ phase (day 5 to 13), and either a late organ/convalescence phase (day 13 onwards).
The average MVD case fatality rate is around 50%. Case fatality rates have varied from 24% to 88% in past outbreaks depending on virus strain and case management.
There is no specific treatment proven to neutralize the virus, but early supportive care with rehydration and symptomatic treatment improves survival.
A range of blood products, immune, and drug therapies are developing.
Was a Marburg pandemic predicted?
Last April 2021, The Glocal Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) published, The next pandemic: Marburg? The article discussed how globalization could make this virus more likely to erupt worldwide.
GAVI also contains articles on why Ebola, Yellow Fever, and the Nipah virus can become the next pandemic. All these viruses have high death rates.
The curious thing is that GAVI is partnered/sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Gates Foundation and COVID-19
The Gates Foundation sponsored Event 201, a coronavirus pandemic exercise done in New York on October 18, 2019. One month later, the novel coronavirus infection originally called the Wuhan flu, later renamed COVID-19, was first detected in Wuhan, China.
The Gates Foundation and the Monkeypox outbreak
The Gates Foundation is also a participant in the 2021 Monkeypox Tabletop Exercise by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Munich Security Conference that predicted the exact week when the monkeypox outbreak would start.
The 2021 Monkeypox tabletop exercise resulted in 3.2 billion cases and 271 million dead.
Somehow, the Gates Foundation is quite prescient about viral epidemics. There are 8,169 monkeypox cases now. The W.H.O. continues to meet to decide if the monkeypox outbreak is a public health emergency of international significance.
More about the Marburg Virus disease as it develops or spreads.
Sources:
- CDC Marburg (Marburg Virus Disease)
- Asad A, Aamir A, Qureshi NE, Bhimani S, Jatoi NN, Batra S, Ochani RK, Abbasi MK, Tariq MA, Diwan MN. Past and current advances in Marburg virus disease: a review. Infez Med. 2020 Sep 1;28(3):332-345. PMID: 32920568.
- World Health Organization Marburg Virus Disease