Important Takeaways:
- Rwanda, a landlocked country in central Africa, declared an outbreak on Friday and a day later the first six deaths were reported.
- Rwanda says eight people have died so far from the Ebola-like and highly contagious Marburg virus, the deadly hemorrhagic fever that has no authorized vaccine or treatment.
- The public has been urged to avoid physical contact to help curb the spread. Some 300 people who came into contact with those confirmed to have the virus have also been identified, and an unspecified number of them have been put in isolation facilities.
- Most of the affected are healthcare workers across six out of 30 districts in the country.
- “Marburg is a rare disease,” Nsanzimana told journalists. “We are intensifying contact tracing and testing to help stop the spread.”
- A person infected with the virus can take between three days and three weeks to show symptoms, he added.
- Separately, Rwanda has so far reported six cases of mpox, a disease caused by a virus related to smallpox but that typically causes milder symptoms.
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Luke 21:11 There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
Important Takeaways:
- Cases of Marburg going unreported in Equatorial Guinea, WHO says
- The Marburg outbreak in Equatorial Guinea continues to grow, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, as the global health agency stated that it knows of confirmed cases that the country has not yet reported.
- To date Equatorial Guinea has acknowledged nine laboratory-confirmed cases, seven of whom have died. In addition, 20 other people with links to the confirmed cases died without being tested; they are considered probable cases. Throughout this outbreak, which is believed to have begun in early January, the government has been slow to release updates; last week the WHO expressed fears there may be undetected chains of transmission.
- Marburg virus disease is caused by a filovirus, which is the family to which Ebola viruses belong.
- Marburg has a high case fatality rate.
- Marburg outbreaks are typically smaller than Ebola outbreaks, with the largest on record encompassing 252 cases, 227 of whom died.
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