“Ethiopia has confirmed an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in the south of the country,” reports The Guardian:
The Marburg virus is one of the deadliest known pathogens. Like Ebola, it causes severe bleeding, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea and has a 21-day incubation period.
Also like Ebola, it is transmitted via contact with body fluids and has a fatality rate of between 25% and 80%.
The head of the World Health Organization, Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, confirmed on Friday that at least nine cases had been detected in southern Ethiopia…
Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Ethiopia’s health system acted promptly to contain the outbreak, which occurred in the Jinka area. It said it would work with Ethiopian health authorities to curb the spread of the virus and keep it from spreading to other countries.
“An epidemic of Marburg virus killed 10 people in Tanzania in January before being terminated in March,” The Guardian says.
In the past, Marburg virus killed as many as 9 out of 10 people who contracted it. In the biggest 21st Century outbreak of Marburg — in Angola in 2004 and 2005 — the death rate was 90%, with 252 cases and 227 deaths. Over 80% of people who got it died in the late 20th Century in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But progress is being made. Last year, only a quarter of Marburg victims died in an outbreak of the disease in the country of Rwanda.
In the world’s 20 recorded Marburg outbreaks, the death rate has varied a lot.
