In February, a A 23-year-old Tanzanian fisherman suddenly fell ill after returning from a busy trading outpost in the middle of Lake Victoria. Returning home to Bukoba, a district in northwestern Tanzania, he developed vomiting and diarrhea. He had a fever and started bleeding from openings on his body. On March 1, he passed away.
His family and community carried out the customary burial—not knowing that this gathering would be the start of a deadly outbreak. Soon, some of those present began to fall ill. On March 16, Tanzania’s chief medical officer announced that an unspecified “contagious” disease had been detected and a rapid response team was deployed to Bukoba. Finally, five days later, PCR testing at Tanzania’s National Public Health Laboratory revealed the cause: the Marburg virus.
This is not the first time Marburg has appeared this year. On February 13, Equatorial Guinea reported its first outbreak. A deadly virus, spreading in new places on opposite sides of the continent at the same time, is a big warning. It not only shows the ever-present threat of viruses spreading from nature to humans, but also shows, AgainThe world is not prepared to deal with these dangers.
Marburg shares many characteristics with Ebola—these viruses belong to the same family. Like Ebola, it reason viral hemorrhagic fever, leading to dangerous internal bleeding and organ damage. In some outbreaks, up to 90 percent case of death; At the time of writing, five of Tanzania’s eight confirmed cases have died. Symptoms take from a few days to three weeks to develop, and the virus can be spread through human contact, especially through the bodily fluids of an infected person or corpse. Bats eat fruit of Rousettus family is of virus suspected host.
Abela Kakuru, a resident of Ibaraizibu, a 10-minute drive from Bukoba’s affected villages, said the symptoms were so similar that “in this village, most people believe it’s Ebola”. But there is one big difference: Unlike Ebola, there is no approved vaccine or antiviral drug for Marburg. Fluids, electrolytes, blood, and oxygen may be given to treat symptoms, but there are nothing yet to contain or fight viruses. Tanzania’s Minister of Health, Ummy Mwalimu, said at a press conference in late March: “Supportive care for patients is the mainstay of treatment.
Thankfully, developing a vaccine doesn’t have to start from scratch. Some experimental vaccine have shown promise in non-human primates and one from the Sabin Institute also recently tested in a few people. It was found to be safe and stimulate an immune response.
The World Health Organization is now planning to begin trials of several experimental vaccines using what is known as round vaccination. “That means we will provide vaccines to people who have been in close contact with cases,” said Ana-Maria Henao Restrepo, co-leader of the WHO’s R&D Plan for the Epidemic. “In our experience, this is about 20 to 50 people, depending on the social network of each case.” Statistical analysis of the number of people who were subsequently infected would allow researchers to calculate the effectiveness of the vaccine.
