Lethales Marburg-Virus spreads in Rwanda: Why scientists are concerned
Lethales Marburg-Virus spreads in Rwanda: Why scientists are concerned
It is a outbreak of superlatives. One of the most deadliest known viruses, Marburg, has appeared in Rwanda , killed 13 people and 58 suffered in one of the greatest outbreaks of Marburg that have ever been documented. Scientists expect that the outbreak can be contained quickly - but warn that Marburg is understood as a whole.
the outbreak, which was proclaimed on September 27th is Rwanda's first. Tanzania and Equatorial Guinea last year recorded her first Marburg outbreaks ; Ghana's first outbreak was in 2022. Before the 2020s, outbreaks were found a few times a decade; Today they appear about once a year. The causes of these events are not completely clear. Researchers explain that environmental threats such as climate change and Deforestation, the likelihood that people will meet animals that can transmit diseases .
The Marburg-Virus is a "cousin" of the Ebola virus, who killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa between 2014 and 2016 , explains virologist Adam Hume from Boston University in Massachusetts. The mortality rate near Marburg was between 23 % and about 90 % in past outbreaks. There are no vaccines or treatments, but supportive care increases the chances of survival.
Early symptoms of Marburg - high fever, headache and discomfort - are similar to many other diseases. But people with Marburg will soon develop serious diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. Those affected are bleeding out of their nose, gums or other parts of the body.
In Rwanda, some of the first people who were later tested positively for Marburg had initially tested on malaria. The health workers noticed that something was wrong when the usual treatment did not work. When the workers realized that they were dealing with a Marburg outbreak, several of them had already been infected, said Rwandian Minister of Health Sabin Nsanzana in a press conference last week.
The outbreak deals with the residents of Kigali, says Olivia Uwishema, the founder of the Oli Health Magazine Organization , a non -profit organization in Kigali. Uwishema lives in the United States, but happened to be in Kigali when Marburg arrived. Now people think when someone has a fever "that it may be Marburg," says Uwishema.
The good news is that Marburg is mainly transferred through contact with body fluids. This means that the isolation of infected persons and the use of protective equipment can effectively contain the spread, says Levine.
In the next three weeks, contact followers in Rwanda will speak with hundreds of people who had direct or indirect contact with Marburg infected. Everyone who comes to the clinic with high fever tests health workers. This burdens the country's diagnostic laboratories due to the high malaria deposits.
Rwanda's comprehensive tests on the virus could be responsible for the great size of the current outbreak. Many past outbreaks have been reported that only a few people affected, explains Uwishema. But in countries whose health systems are not strong enough to offer the test level that Rwanda has reached, cases could have been overlooked.
The outbreak can be declared if within 42 days - which corresponds to two incubation times of the virus - no new infections occur after the last identified case. "In the coming weeks, we should have a good feeling for whether it rises quickly or rather dilated," says Levine.
Marburg outbreaks usually begin after A person joins an infected fruit bat -an animal that can carry the virus without developing. Based on Influences such as climate change and deforestation" break up the boundaries between animal world and people ", which creates increasingly frequent opportunities to jump over on pathogens, to people, said global health expert Caroline Ryan from the Irish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Sea Resources in Celbridge.
vaccines and medication could help to curb Marburg, but to thoroughly test these means, scientists have to wait for outbreaks. "This is one of the reasons why in my opinion we have no therapeutic agents and vaccines that are approved against the Marburg virus," said Hume.
Rwandische Doctors started testing a candidate of vaccine against Marburg and planning, to test the effectiveness of the antiviral drug remdesivir against the disease . Animal experiments 1 indicate that Remdesivir could be helpful to treat Marburg, as is the case with Covid-19. But data from human studies that Remdesivir examined as a therapy against Ebola "were a little disappointing," says Hume, accusing the prospect that the medication could not be useful for Marburg.
The identification of an effective antiviral alone will not be sufficient, say health authorities. In order to cope with future outbursts, Africa for the production of vaccines , treating treatments and diagnostic tools, Jean Kaseya, General Director of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said last week. Relying on other countries to sell such supplies at high prices can lead to a "panic mode", he said.
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