According to the World Health Organization, Equatorial Guinea is presently experiencing its first-ever epidemic of the dangerous Marburg virus, which has already robbed the lives of at least nine people. The Equatorial Guinea outbreak comes after the discovery of a few instances of the virus in Ghana last year.
A potentially lethal viral hemorrhagic illness, the Marburg virus, is very contagious. Although it affects people infrequently. When it does, it can spread swiftly. The virus, which is a member of the same family of filoviridae as the Ebola virus, typically infects humans through over exposure to African fruit bats while working in mines and caves with Rousettus bat colonies.
The Marburg virus does not spread through the air. Instead, it spreads swiftly among people when they come into contact with the body fluids like blood, saliva, or urine of infected individuals, and surfaces or objects. The lives of patients, family members, and healthcare professionals are largely at risk. The virus can disperse through dead bodies even after the burial.
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The Marburg virus can cause sudden onset symptoms such as high temperature, excruciating headache, chills, and malaise. Muscle aches and cramps are frequent symptoms, and around day five, a non-itchy rash on the chest, back, or stomach might appear.
Patients have a “ghost-like” look with drawn features, deep-set eyes, expressionless faces, and excessive sluggishness. When the condition is lethal, significant bleeding, multi-organ malfunction and death often occur between eight and nine days after the disease first manifests.
The Marburg virus has no licensed vaccines or antiviral medications, and clinical identification of the virus can be challenging due to many of its symptoms being similar to those of other infectious illnesses including malaria, typhoid fever, and Ebola. However, supportive treatment, which includes rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids, maintaining oxygen levels, employing pharmacological therapies, and addressing certain symptoms as they manifest, can increase the likelihood of survival.
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There are already 16 probable cases in the western Kie-Ntem province of Equatorial Guinea, which has verified the epidemic. To assist the national response efforts, the WHO is sending teams to the affected areas and assigning expertise in epidemiology, case management, infection prevention, laboratory, and risk communication. The WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, has asked the Equatorial Guinean government to act quickly and forcefully to save lives and stop the epidemic as soon as possible.
Other African nations such as South Africa, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda, have already recorded cases of Marburg. According to the health ministry of the nation, Angola saw the virus’s worst epidemic in 2005, which resulted in the deaths of over 350 individuals. According to the CDC, the virus is not believed to be indigenous to other continents, including North America.
The upcoming meeting of the officials, under the WHO’s directions, will address the ways to stop the spread of the Marburg Virus along with the discovery of effective vaccines and treatments. The WHO is confident that the control measures would limit the further spread of the virus and help save the lives of the local people.
