The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday reported two potential cases of Marburg Virus Disease (MBV) in Ghana, reported The UN News. The two cases if confirmed would mark the first-ever Marburg infections in the West African country.
According to the WHO, the Marburg disease is a very infectious hemorrhagic fever and is from the same family as Ebola. It gets transmitted among people through direct contact with bodily fluids of infected people and surfaces. The case fatality rates have ranged from 24% to 88% in previous recorded outbreaks.
The WHO said that a preliminary analysis of samples taken from two patients from Ghana’s southern Ashanti region turned up positive, but they were forwarded for full confirmation to the Pasteur Institute in Senegal’s Dakar. The institute works in collaboration with the U.N. health body.
The two, unrelated, patients reported similar kind of symptoms including diarrhoea, fever, nausea and vomiting. They both have died.
Francis Kasolo, a WHO representative in Ghana, said the authorities have already begun contact tracing and an outbreak response is being prepared.
“The health authorities are on the ground investigating the situation and preparing for a possible outbreak response”, said Dr Kasolo.
He said the UN health agency is working closely with Ghana’s health authorities to ramp up detection, track contacts, be ready to control the spread of the virus.
So far 34 people have since been quarantined and are being monitored who came in close contact with the two infected people.
If confirmed, the cases would mark the second time Marburg has been detected in West Africa. Guinea confirmed a single case in an outbreak that was declared over on 16 September 2021, five weeks after the initial case was detected.
Previous Marburg outbreaks and individual cases were reported in Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.
