The small Central African country has so far reported nine deaths, as well as 16 suspected cases of Marburg virus disease, with symptoms including fever, fatigue and bloody vomiting and diarrhea, according to the WHO.
“Surveillance on the site has been intensified,” George Ameh said.representative of the WHO in Equatorial Guinea.
“Contact tracing, as you know, is a cornerstone of the response. We have (…) redeployed teams from the Covid-19 They were there for contact tracing and we’ve quickly retooled them to really help us.”
Marburg virus quarantine
Equatorial Guinea quarantined more than 200 people and restricted movement last week in its Kie-Ntem province after detecting an unknown hemorrhagic fever. The country officially declared its first outbreak of the Marburg virus disease on Monday.
the virus of Marburg is a highly infectious and deadly diseasesimilar to Ebola, and can have a case fatality rate of up to 88%, according to the WHO. There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat it.
“We’re working on a 30-day response plan where we should be able to quantify what the exact measures are and quantify what the exact needs are,” Ameh said.
He added that the country’s authorities had not reported any new suspected cases in the last 48 hours.
Source: Ambito
