Sequence analysis of the
Marburg virus nucleoprotein gene: comparison to Ebola virus and other non-segmented negative-strand RNA viruses.
The purpose of the meetings was to engage stakeholders at district and chiefdom level in KakoyaVillageWaraWaraBafodia inKoinadugu District, Koima Lei Chiefdom in Kono district and in KasawiFakunya Chiefdom in MoyambaDistricton the recent discovery of the deadly
Marburg Virus.
Marburg virus was first identified in 1967 when an outbreak of a hemorrhagic fever began at the same time in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt in Germany as well as in Belgrade, Serbia (then in Yugoslavia).
Several hundred people may have been exposed to the virus at health facilities and at a traditional burial of the dead woman's brother, who worked as a game hunter and lived near a cave inhabited by Rousettus bats, natural hosts of the
Marburg virus.
Blood specimens collected from both patients were sent for testing for
Marburg virus disease, Ebola virus disease, Rift Valley fever (RVF), and Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic fever at the Uganda Virus Research Institute, as part of the viral hemorrhagic fevers surveillance program.
Infection with
Marburg virus and the appropriate Ebola virus can create severe disease in individuals, with high temperature and bleeding.
There are several reports of hospitalized patients in the Netherlands (11), the US (12), and South Africa (13) with initially undiagnosed EV or the related
Marburg virus infections that had extensive contact with healthcare workers, including laboratory staff working with clinical samples from these patients.
A meta-analysis of the risk factors for transmission of Ebola or
Marburg virus disease found that transmission of any African filovirus is unlikely except through close contact, especially during the most severe stages of acute illness.
[1] A small number of nosocomial outbreaks have occurred in SA:
Marburg virus disease (MVD) in Johannesburg in 1975, CCHF near Cape Town in 1984, EVD in Johannesburg in 1996, and the Lujo virus, a newly identified arenavirus, in Johannesburg in 2008 [7-10] (these are dealt with in detail in the 'Clinical Alert' article in this issue of SAMJ [11]).
Researchers analysed screening for six viruses: SARS, Ebola, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV),
Marburg virus, Influenza H1N1 (swine flu), and Influenza H7N9 (avian flu), and highlighted what needed to be done to improve it further.
Ebola virus and
Marburg virus cause serious disease outbreaks with high case fatality rates.
Marburg virus - a filovirus that causes Marburg disease; carried by animals; can be used as a bioweapon