Equatorial Guinea’s health minister confirmed Monday that nine people had died from the Marburg virus disease, a hemorrhagic fever almost as deadly as Ebola in the east of the country.
Last week the government announced that it was investigating suspected cases of hemorrhagic fever and today Minister Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba confirmed that they were deaths caused by the Marburg virus.
Equatorial Guinea “declares today a health alert for hemorrhagic fever in Marburg, in the province of Kie-Ntem and in the (neighboring) district of Mongomo,” the minister said at a press conference.
Authorities have quarantined the province to contain the “epidemic”, and there are three people with symptoms of the disease isolated in a hospital in this sparsely populated and rural region, on the border with Gabon and Cameroon, Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba said. .
The three hospitalized people “present mild symptoms (…) and evolve favorably,” he added.
A “containment plan” has been implemented in close collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) to “deal with the epidemic” in this densely tropical forested area in the east of the continent, which also includes two main islands. .
The virus is transmitted by bats to humans and in direct human-to-human contact through bodily fluids of infected people, or with surfaces and materials.
Marburg virus disease is a rare and severe type of hemorrhagic fever with a high mortality rate: on average 50%, but can range from 24% to 88%, depending on several factors, such as virus strain. and the health care provided to the patient.
Although the diseases caused by the Marburg virus and Ebola are different, they have similar clinical profiles, capable of causing outbreaks with a high mortality rate.
Equatorial Guinea is one of the nine member states of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP).
Source: TSF
