Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/MALABO: The health minister said that nine citizens have died in Equatorial Guinea from an “outbreak” of the Marburg virus, which causes hemorrhagic fever nearly as deadly as Ebola, , announcing that the province had been placed in quarantine.
The government announced the previous week that it was investigating the cause of suspected cases of hemorrhagic fever in the densely forested eastern region near the borders of Gabon and Cameroon on Africa’s central western coast, but said three citizens had shown “light symptoms”.
WHO stance
Health Minister Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba that the health alert had been declared in Kie-Ntem province and the neighbouring district of Mongomo, with a “lockdown plan implemented” after consulting with the United Nations and World Health Organization.
He said that the quarantine is impacting 4,325 people in Kie-Ntem.
Nine deaths occurred between January 7 and February 7, and a minister said that testing is still to be carried out on a “suspicious” death in a hospital on February 10.
Ebola-like virus
The Ebola-like Marburg virus is a highly dangerous pathogen that causes severe fever, often accompanied by bleeding, often targeting many organs and reducing the body’s ability to function independently.
It is part of the so-called filovirus families, including the Ebola virus, which has wreaked havoc in many previous outbreaks in Africa.
A natural host of the Marburg virus is the African fruit bats, which carry the virus but don’t fall sick from it.
But the animals pass the virus to primates nearby, including humans, and human-to-human transmission then occurs through contact with blood and other bodily fluids.
The fatality rate in confirmed cases has ranged from 24 % to 88 % in previous outbreaks, depending on the virus strain and case management, according to the WHO.
