Categories: AFRICAHealthLatest

Guinea Confirms West Africa’s First Highly Infectious Marburg Virus Case

Health authorities in Guinea have confirmed West Africa’s first case of the Marburg virus, a highly infectious disease that’s in the same family as the virus that causes Ebola.
Marburg was detected less than two months after Guinea declared an end to an Ebola outbreak that erupted earlier this year.
Samples taken from a now-deceased patient and tested by a field laboratory in Gueckedou as well as Guinea’s national haemorrhagic fever laboratory turned out positive for the Marburg virus. Further analysis by the Institut Pasteur in Senegal confirmed the result.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has however said the virus needs to be “stopped in its tracks”.
“We applaud the alertness and the quick investigative action by Guinea’s health workers. The potential for the Marburg virus to spread far and wide means we need to stop it in its tracks,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa.
“We are working with the health authorities to implement a swift response that builds on Guinea’s past experience and expertise in managing Ebola, which is transmitted in a similar way.”
Gueckedou, where Marburg has been confirmed, is also the same region where cases of the 2021 Ebola outbreak in Guinea as well as the 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak were initially detected.
Efforts are underway to find the people who may have been in contact with the patient. As the disease is appearing for the first time in the country, health authorities are launching public education and community mobilization to raise awareness and galvanize support to help curb widespread infection.
An initial team of 10 WHO experts, including epidemiologists and socio-anthropologists, is on the ground helping to investigate the case and supporting the national health authorities to swiftly step up emergency response, including risk assessment, disease surveillance, community mobilization, testing, clinical care, infection prevention as well as logistical support.

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  • The virus nickname Ebola is Marburg virus. Belgian criminal called Piot nickname it Ebola virus which has nothing to do with the river Ebola in Congo. Ebola is name of a river in Congo. The virus didn't originate from the river Ebola. The virus originated from a laboratory in German city of Marburg in 1960s.

    Criminals attacked a hospital close to River Ebola in 1970s. Criminals have ever since attacked African countries many times with the virus as biological weapon. They now want to strike again since Coronavirus is not deadly to Africans as the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates wished.

    Only ignorant fools do not know their enemy. 21st century Africans must know their friends and enemies or suffer. If you know your enemy, possibilities of him or her harming you will be minimal. The foolishness of many Africans is welcoming their enemies as friends. Guinea welcomed criminals as friends which said they want to conduct research. Shortly after they left, the virus outbreak happened which spread from Guinea to Liberia, Sierra Leone etc. Till date, Guinea didn't tell us the origin, the suspects, didn't go for them. Why wouldn't similar attack happen on African Soil, if Africans remain fools which do not know their friends and enemies.

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