Nine people have died in Equatorial Guinea from an “outbreak” of the Marburg virus, which causes a hemorrhagic fever nearly as deadly as Ebola, the health minister said Monday, and put a province in quarantine.
The government had announced last week that it was investigating the cause of suspect cases of hemorrhagic fever in a rural eastern region of dense forest near the borders of Gabon and Cameroon, but said only three people had shown “light symptoms”.
Health Minister Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba said a “health alert” had been declared in the Kie-Ntem province and the neighbouring district of Mongomo, with a “lockdown plan implemented” after consulting with the World Health Organization and the United Nations.
The Marburg virus is a highly dangerous pathogen that causes severe fever that often includes bleeding, often targeting several organs and often reducing the body’s ability to function on its own.
It is part of the so-called filovirus family that also includes the Ebola virus, which has wreaked havoc in several previous outbreaks in Africa.
The natural of the Marburg virus is the African fruit bat, which carry the virus but do not fall sick from it.
But the animals can pass the virus to primates in close proximity, including humans, and human-to-human transmission then occurs through contact with blood or other bodily fluids.
