Health authorities in Guinea have confirmed one death from Marburg virus, a highly infectious hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, the World Health Organization said, Report informs referring to Reuters.
It marks the first time that the deadly disease has been identified in West Africa. There have been 12 major Marburg outbreaks since 1967, mostly in southern and eastern Africa.
Guinea’s new case was first identified last week, just two months after the country was declared free of Ebola following a brief flare-up that killed 12 people earlier this year.
The WHO statement said that the patient, who has since succumbed to the illness, first sought treatment at a local clinic before his condition rapidly deteriorated.
Analysts at Guinea’s national hemorrhagic fever laboratory and the Institute Pasteur in Senegal later confirmed the Marburg diagnosis.
Both the Marburg case and this year’s Ebola cases were detected in Guinea’s Gueckedou district, near Liberia and Ivory Coast borders. The first cases of the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic, the largest in history, also were from the same region in Southeastern Guinea’s forest region.
Marburg case fatality rates have varied from 24 percent to 88 percent in past outbreaks depending on virus strain and case management, WHO said, adding that transmission occurs through contact with infected body fluids and tissue. Symptoms include headache, vomiting blood, muscle pains, and bleeding through various orifices.