ERROR 1
ERROR 1
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
ERROR 2
Password and Confirm password must match.
If you have an ACS member number, please enter it here so we can link this account to your membership. (optional)
ERROR 2
ACS values your privacy. By submitting your information, you are gaining access to C&EN and subscribing to our weekly newsletter. We use the information you provide to make your reading experience better, and we will never sell your data to third party members.
On Jan. 20, Tanzania declared an outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus disease in Biharamulo District in the northwestern part of the country’s Kagera Region. The announcement comes after public health officials confirmed one case. Additionally, 25 people with suspected infections whose test results were later negative for Marburg virus are being closely monitored.
This is the second Marburg virus disease outbreak in Tanzania. In March 2023, the country recorded nine cases, including six deaths, from the disease. “We have demonstrated in the past our ability to contain a similar outbreak and are determined to do the same this time around,” said Tanzania’s president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, at a press briefing. These measures include quick isolation of people with suspected infections for testing and treatment, contact tracing, and community engagement, she added.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is dispatching a 12-member team that includes epidemiologists and laboratory experts for on-ground support. The agency is also sending supplies, including polymerase chain reaction test kits and genomic sequencing reagents.
Last week, the World Health Organization issued a statement about a suspected Marburg virus disease outbreak, which involved nine cases, including eight deaths, across two districts—Biharamulo and Muleba—in the Kagera Region. These individuals experienced multiple symptoms, including headache, high fever, back pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting blood, and external bleeding. Samples collected from five of these people tested negative for Marburg virus. “The cause of [these] earlier reported deaths in the community has not been confirmed, and efforts are ongoing to ascertain the source of the infection,” Hassan said.
Marburg, like Ebola, is an RNA virus that belongs to the family of filoviruses. Egyptian fruit bats are the primary reservoirs of the Marburg virus, and these bats are known to be present in the Kagera Region. People can get infected when they come in contact with the saliva, urine, or feces of bats shedding the virus. Infected people can further transmit the virus to others via their body fluids, such as blood, urine, saliva, feces, or semen. About 50% of the people who get Marburg virus disease die.
No approved vaccines or therapeutics for Marburg virus disease exist. But last year, during an outbreak in Rwanda, the country deployed an experimental Marburg vaccine produced by the Sabin Vaccine Institute as part of a Phase 2 clinical trial. Similar studies on the vaccine’s safety and immunogenicity are ongoing in Uganda and Kenya.
Join the conversation
Contact the reporter
Submit a Letter to the Editor for publication
Engage with us on X