Eight people in Tanzania’s north-west Kagera region fell ill with fever, vomiting, bleeding and renal failure. Five of them, including a health worker, died. On 21 March 2023 the country confirmed what had caused it: Marburg virus disease, never before recorded in Tanzania.
Tanzania’s National Public Health Laboratory analysed samples from the patients to identify the cause. The remaining three people were being treated, and authorities had identified 161 contacts who were being monitored.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is helping the Ministry of Health send an emergency team to Kagera for further epidemiological investigations. The team will concentrate on active case finding in the community and in local health facilities, looking for more contacts and giving them care.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, praised the speed of the lab work. “The efforts by Tanzania’s health authorities to establish the cause of the disease is a clear indication of the determination to effectively respond to the outbreak,” she said. “We are working with the government to rapidly scale up control measures to halt the spread of the virus and end the outbreak as soon as possible.”
A country used to emergencies
Tanzania has had practice. In the past three years it has dealt with COVID-19, cholera and dengue. A WHO strategic risk assessment in September 2022 rated the country at high to very high risk for infectious disease outbreaks. Moeti said lessons from those earlier outbreaks “should stand the country in good stead as it confronts this latest challenge.”
What Marburg does
Marburg is highly virulent and causes haemorrhagic fever, with a fatality ratio of up to 88%. It belongs to the same family as the virus behind Ebola. Illness starts abruptly with high fever, severe headache and severe malaise, and many patients develop severe haemorrhagic symptoms within seven days.
The virus reaches people from fruit bats. From there it passes between humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, and through contaminated surfaces and materials.
No vaccine or antiviral treatment is approved. Supportive care, meaning rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids and treatment of individual symptoms, improves survival.
Sources
- Tanzania confirms first-ever outbreak of Marburg Virus Disease – United Republic of Tanzania
- Tanzania confirms first-ever outbreak of Marburg Virus Disease
