KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) — marburg hemorrhagic fever Eleven people have died in Rwanda, health officials announced Thursday, as the East African country investigates the cause of an outbreak first traced among patients at a health facility.
According to the latest information from the Rwandan government, there are 36 confirmed cases of Ebola-like symptoms, 25 of whom are in isolation.
Rwanda declared an outbreak on September 27 and reported six deaths a day later. Officials said at the time that the first case was detected among patients at a health care facility and that an investigation was underway “to determine the source of infection.”
The source of the infection remains unknown, raising concerns about the outbreak in the small Central African country. Isolation of patients and their contacts is key to preventing the spread of viral hemorrhagic fevers like Marburg disease.
The World Health Organization has warned that cases in Kigali pose a risk of international spread, as Rwanda’s capital Kigali has an international airport and is connected by road to other cities in East Africa. .
“WHO assesses the risk of this outbreak as very high at the national level, high at the regional level, and low at the global level,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a regular briefing on Thursday, referring to the 2018 Marburg outbreak. ” Rwanda.
Underscoring growing international concern over the outbreak, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control said in a statement that two people have been quarantined in the northern German city of Hamburg after returning from Rwanda, where they had been admitted to a medical facility with Marburg virus patients. announced that it had been done. on Thursday.
Both tested negative for the virus, the ECDC said in a statement.
According to German media reports, authorities closed two railway tracks at the station where the two arrived due to concerns about the virus. One was a young medical student who felt symptoms of illness and called a doctor from the train.
In Rwanda, most of those affected are health workers in six of Rwanda’s 30 districts. Some patients live in areas bordering Congo, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania, WHO said.
Rwandan health authorities say at least 300 people who came into contact with a confirmed case of Marburg disease have been identified, and an unspecified number of them are in isolation facilities.
Rwanda’s Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana said on Thursday that clinical trials of the vaccination would begin “within the next few days”, but did not specify which type of vaccine would be used.
He told reporters at a briefing at the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Rwanda is testing everyone who shows symptoms of fever, head and body aches, and has tested 2,000 people so far and is on track to test another 5,000. He said that more test kits are scheduled to arrive in the country.
Rwandans are being asked to avoid physical contact to limit the spread of infection. Strict measures include limiting the number of people who can attend the funerals of Marburg victims, as well as suspending visits to schools and hospitals. In the event of a Marburg-related fatality, no vigil will be allowed at home.
The US Embassy in Kigali asked its staff to work remotely and avoid visiting the office.
Like Ebola, the Marburg virus is thought to originate from fruit bats and is spread to people through close contact with the body fluids of an infected person or surfaces such as contaminated bed sheets. If Marburg disease is not treated, up to 88% of people with the disease can die.
Symptoms include fever, muscle pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and in some cases death due to extreme blood loss. There is no approved vaccine or treatment for Marburg disease.
There have been outbreaks and isolated cases of Marburg disease in the past. recorded in tanzaniaEquatorial Guinea, Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Ghana, according to the WHO.
The virus was first identified in 1967 after causing simultaneous disease outbreaks in laboratories in Marburg, Germany, and Belgrade, Serbia. During the monkey research, seven people contracted the virus and died.
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Jamie Keene contributed to this report from Geneva.
