Rwandan authorities have imposed restrictions on funeral sizes as part of measures to curb the spread of the Marburg virus, following the country’s first outbreak of the deadly disease. The outbreak, confirmed by Rwanda’s health ministry, has already claimed eight lives.
Marburg, a highly contagious virus from the same family as Ebola, has a fatality rate of up to 88%. It spreads from fruit bats to humans and can then be transmitted through contact with bodily fluids of infected individuals. Symptoms include fever, headaches, muscle pain, vomiting, and severe diarrhoea, with death often resulting from extreme blood loss.
In an effort to contain the virus, the Rwandan health ministry announced new guidelines, including limiting funeral attendance for victims to no more than 50 people. “Normal business and other activities” will continue across the country, but the public is urged to avoid close contact with symptomatic individuals.
To further prevent the virus’s spread, the ministry has banned hospital visitors for the next 14 days, and patients will only be allowed one caregiver at a time. These guidelines come in response to the fact that many of the initial victims were healthcare workers in a hospital’s intensive care unit.
As of Sunday, the Rwandan government was tracking approximately 300 individuals who had been in contact with confirmed cases. Efforts to intensify contact tracing, surveillance, and testing are underway to halt the outbreak, especially in Kigali, the densely populated capital city where most cases have been reported.
Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, director of the Boston University Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases, noted that Rwanda’s robust public health infrastructure offers hope for containing the virus despite the challenges posed by the urban setting. She highlighted that Rwanda has “a lot better infrastructure and history of public health coordination that many other countries”.
While this marks Rwanda’s first confirmed Marburg outbreak, neighboring countries such as Tanzania and Uganda have faced similar incidents in recent years. Tanzania reported an outbreak in 2023, while three people died in Uganda in 2017.
The authorities continue to urge citizens to practice good hygiene and handwashing to mitigate further transmission of the virus.
Melissa Enoch
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