Rwanda reports Marburg virus outbreak

The Rwandan government declared an outbreak of the dangerous haemorrhagic fever virus on 27 September.

So far, there have been 26 confirmed cases, including eight deaths, spread across seven of the country’s 30 districts. Over 70% of the cases are healthcare workers employed at two health facilities in Kigali.

The districts with cases are Gasabo, Gatsibo, Kamonyi, Kicukiro, Nyagatare, Nyarugenge and Rubavu.

As a result, the World Health Organization (WHO) is now mobilising expertise and outbreak response tools, including emergency medical supplies, to control the virus.

Contact tracing is currently underway in Rwanda, with 300 people under follow-up as of 29 September, according to the WHO. One of the contacts has travelled internationally, but remained healthy and completed their monitoring period without presenting symptoms.

Additionally, the WHO said that it is “coordinating efforts to reinforce collaborative cross-border measures for readiness and response”, with the aim of ensuring timely detection and control of the virus in neighbouring countries.

Symptoms can be severe, and potentially fatal

The virus, which is closely related to Ebola, originates in fruit bats, and is spread through close physical contact with infected individuals or surfaces they have been in contact with, such as bed sheets.

Symptoms of the virus can take days to manifest, and can include muscle pain, fever, diarrhoea, vomiting, and, in some cases, potentially fatal haemorrhaging of blood.

As well as being highly contagious, there is currently no authorised vaccine or treatment for the disease, which has a fatality rate of up to 88%. The WHO noted, however, that there are “several promising candidate medical countermeasures”.

The Rwandan public have been advised to avoid close contact with others to reduce the spread of the virus.

The WHO also recently confirmed “significant progress” in negotiations for a new global agreement outlining how future pandemics will be managed.