Tanzania denies suspected Marburg outbreak after WHO alert in Kagera area.

Staff Reporter.

A suspected outbreak of the Marburg virus in Tanzania has killed at least eight people, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed.

In a statement on Tuesday, the global health agency said a total of nine suspected cases of the high-fatality disease had been reported in two districts of the Kagera region in the country’s northwest.

“We would expect further cases in coming days as disease surveillance improves,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.

Samples from two patients have been collected and tested for confirmation of the outbreak at Tanzania’s national laboratory, the United Nations body said. The patients’ contacts, including healthcare workers, have been identified and were being followed up.

The WHO warned that the risk of further spread in Tanzania and the region was “high” due to Kagera’s location as a transit hub, with significant cross-border movement towards neighbouring Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The global risk was currently assessed as “low”, it added.

The announcement came weeks after a Marburg outbreak was declared over in Rwanda after infecting at least 66 people and killing 15.

The viral haemorrhagic fever has a fatality rate as high as 88 percent, and is from the same virus family as the one responsible for Ebola, which is transmitted to people from fruit bats.

The virus can spread between people through direct contact or via blood and other bodily fluids of infected people, including contaminated bedding or clothing.

There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments for the virus.

But in a statement, Tanzania’s Health Minister Jenista Mhagama said after samples were analysed, all suspected cases were found negative for Marburg virus.

She said that the country had strengthened its surveillance systems and disease monitoring.

We “would like to assure the international organisations, including WHO that we shall always keep them up to date with ongoing developments,” Mhagama said.

Tanzania experienced its first Marburg outbreak in March 2023 in the Bukoba district. It killed six people and lasted for nearly two months.

Source: Fullview and News Agencies.

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