Samples of the virus, which causes hemorrhagic fever, were taken from the patient in Gueckedou. The statement adds that the detection comes less than two months after Guinea declared the end of its most recent Ebola outbreak.
“Gueckedou, where the Marburg virus has been confirmed, is also the same region where the cases of the 2021 Ebola outbreak in Guinea were initially detected, as well as the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa,” according to the statement from the WHO.
“Samples taken from a now deceased patient and analyzed in a field laboratory in Gueckedou, as well as in the Guinean national haemorrhagic fever laboratory, tested positive for the Marburg virus. Additional analysis by the Pasteur Institute in Senegal confirmed the result.”
On Monday, health authorities tried to find people who may have had contact with the patient, and launched a public education campaign to help curb the spread of the infection.
An initial team of 10 WHO experts is on the ground to investigate the case and support the response to the emergency in Guinea.
“We applaud the alertness and swift investigative action of Guinea’s health workers. The potential for the Marburg virus to spread everywhere means we must stop it in its tracks,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, Regional Director of the WHO for Africa, in the statement.
According to the WHO, the virus is transmitted to humans through fruit bats and can then be transmitted from person to person through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people or surfaces and materials contaminated with these fluids.
There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments against Marburg virus; however, there are treatments for specific symptoms that can improve patients’ chances of survival.
“Case fatality rates have ranged from 24% to 88% in previous outbreaks, depending on the virus strain and case management,” the statement said. “In Africa, previous outbreaks and sporadic cases have been reported in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.”
The Marburg virus was first identified in 1967, when 31 people became ill in Germany and Yugoslavia in an outbreak that eventually dates back to imported laboratory monkeys from Uganda. Since then, the virus has appeared sporadically, with only a dozen outbreaks recorded. Many of them involved only one diagnosed case.
The Marburg virus causes Ebola-like symptoms, beginning with fever and weakness and often leading to internal or external bleeding, organ failure, and death.