WHO supports Guinea after detection of first-ever case of Marburg disease |

Marburg, a extremely infectious illness that causes haemorrhagic fever, is transmitted to people by fruit bats.  The virus is in the identical household as Ebola. 

It was detected in Gueckedou prefecture in southwestern Guinea, and fewer than two months after the nation declared an finish to an Ebola outbreak this yr which killed 12 folks. 

The affected person was a person who died on 2 August, eight days after the onset of signs.  The village the place he lived is close to the borders with each Sierra Leone and Liberia. 

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-Basic, mentioned Guinea’s Ministry of Well being reported the case to the UN company on Friday. 

150 contacts recognized 

WHO is supporting the authorities in investigating the supply of the outbreak, tracing contacts and informing the area people about safety measures. 

“About 150 contacts have been recognized and are being adopted up, together with three members of the family and a well being employee, who’ve been recognized as high-risk shut contacts,” Tedros advised journalists in Geneva. 

Gueckedou prefecture is similar area the place instances of the Ebola outbreak in Guinea this yr, in addition to the 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak, had been initially detected. 

Marburg illness has an almost 90 cent fatality price, in response to WHO.  At present there is no such thing as a therapy in opposition to it, though vaccines are beneath improvement, however rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids and therapy of particular signs, improves survival. 

Earlier outbreaks and sporadic instances on the African continent have been reported in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda. 

The illness was first acknowledged in 1967, following two massive simultaneous outbreaks in laboratories within the German cities of Marburg, and in Belgrade, capital of the then Yugoslavia.