One of the world’s deadliest bug kills two more bringing tragic toll to 11
ONE of the world’s deadliest bugs has killed two more people, officials in Equatorial Guinea have said.
The Marburg virus, which is similar to Ebola, causes those who catch it, to bleed to death.
A total of 11 people have now died from the illness, after it was reported last month that nine people had died after testing positive.
Health Minister Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba said work is currently underway to assess the spread of the epidemic.
“Two days ago, the monitoring system recorded eight notifications, including the deaths of two people with symptoms of the disease.
“Forty-eight contact cases have been documented, four of whom have developed symptoms, and three who have been quarantined in hospital,” Ondo’o Ayekaba said on national television this week.
Local health officials initially raised the alarm on February 7, after a mystery illness causing haemorrhagic fever killed several people in Kie Ntem.
Preliminary investigations revealed Marburg virus was to blame.
Many who catch the disease develop severe internal bleeding within a week, with blood from the nose, gums, vagina and in vomit and faeces, and die not long after.
The virus is transmitted to people from fruit bats, and it can spread between humans through direct contact with bodily fluids, surfaces and materials, the WHO said.
No treatment or vaccine exists for Marburg.
In 2014-16 the largest outbreak of Ebola since 1970 began in Guinea.
Cases were recorded in Nigeria, the US, UK, Spain and Italy.
There were 28,616 suspected, probable and confirmed cases in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and 11,310 deaths.
There have been a dozen major Marburg outbreaks since it was discovered in Marburg, Germany, in 1967.
Cases have mostly been in southern and eastern Africa, including Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda, WHO said.
The four symptoms of Marburg to know
Medics at the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) state that symptoms of Marburg are sudden.
They include:
- fever
- chills
- headache
- muscle aches
Around the fifth day you might also experience a rash on the chest, back or stomach.
From here, nausea, vomiting, chest pain, a sore throat, abdominal pain, and diarrhoea may appear.
Symptoms become increasingly severe and can include jaundice, inflammation of the pancreas, severe weight loss, delirium, shock, liver failure, massive hemorrhaging, and multi-organ dysfunction, the CDC states.