A new suspected Marburg virus horror on the lines of Ebola has raised alarm in northwestern Tanzania, with the disease causing at least eight fatalities. WHO stated on Tuesday that there were a total of at most nine Marburg cases in the Kagera region in the last week. The organization, however, pointed out, "Identification of those living in the communities is what we are really waiting for, and so it might be possible, indeed it might be more than that, that cases will be diagnosed in the future, as the surveillance system will keep getting more and more data."
The WHO had revealed that both healthcare workers and other patients had been identified and were under monitoring among the others. Rapid response units of the WHO argued that before their arrival in the area, the situation had been managed in a way that they were able to identify and treat the affected residents immediately and vaccinate the remaining ones.
In the joint statement, the WHO stressed that the worldwide risk of the disease is minimal, and so far no evidence has been provided that could show the disease may cross borders. In the previous month, the neighboring state of Rwanda also reported that the outbreak was over after the testings confirmed that 66 individuals were positive, and in the end, 15 people died. The WHO estimates that an average of fifty percent of those infected with the Marburg virus get the virus from the bats that feed on the fruits already infected with the virus.
Therefore, the first-ever Marburg virus outbreak in Bukoba, Tanzania, in the month of March 2023, killed around six people in the span of two months. This is how humans get infected with the virus, either by the virus transiting from bats into humans through fruit consumption or by the virus spreading through the exchange of bodily fluids between infected individuals. It is noteworthy that there is no specific treatment or a vaccine, although there are some experiments going on, and most likely one or the other is not fostered yet.