According to the African country’s Ministry of Health, the Marburg virus outbreak in Rwanda was caused by transmission from flying foxes to humans. The pathogen causes Marburg fever, a disease with a high mortality rate.
“We have managed to trace the origin of the outbreak and established that the origin was a zoonotic disease,” Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimina said at a news conference in the capital Kigali.
Fruit bats as carriers of the pathogen
The index case was traced to a flying fox cave near a mining mine. This led to contact between workers and flying foxes, Nsanzimina said.
The East African country reported an outbreak of the Marburg virus on September 27, which can cause high fever and complaints such as muscle pain, abdominal cramps, diarrhea and bloody vomit. Signs of illness usually appear five to ten days after infection.
According to the Rwandan Ministry of Health, a total of 65 people have been infected as of October 26, of which 15 have died so far. Three more patients are said to be being treated.
Virus with high mortality rate
The Marburg virus, like the Ebola virus, belongs to the group Filoviridae. It can cause a severe clinical presentation, with symptoms of hemorrhagic fever and a mortality rate ranging from 22 to 90 percent. Nearly all documented cases to date have occurred on the African continent.
The pathogen is named after the city of Marburg in the German state of Hesse, because laboratory workers there became infected with the previously unknown virus in laboratory monkeys in 1967. A total of 29 people were infected at that time, seven of whom died.
Source: Krone
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