Ghana has reported two suspected cases of Marburg virus, after preliminary analysis of samples taken from two patients by the country’s Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research came out positive.
The World Health Organisation noted that per the standard procedure, the samples have been sent to the Institut Pasteur in Senegal, a World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre, for confirmation.
WHO said the two patients from the southern Ashanti region – both deceased and unrelated – showed symptoms including diarrhoea, fever, nausea and vomiting and they had been taken to a district hospital in the Ashanti region.
Marburg virus is a highly infectious disease in the same family as the virus that causes Ebola. It can be transmitted to people from fruit bats and spreads among humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, surfaces and materials.
Illness begins abruptly, with high fever, severe headache and malaise. Many patients develop severe haemorrhagic signs within seven days. Case fatality rates have varied from 24 per cent to 88 per cent in past outbreaks depending on virus strain and case management.
Although there are no vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat the virus, supportive care – rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids – and treatment of specific symptoms, improves survival. A range of potential treatments, including blood products, immune therapies and drug therapies.
The health organisation’s Representative in Ghana, Dr Francis Kasolo, in a statement, said preparations for a possible outbreak response were being set up swiftly as further investigations were underway.
“The health authorities are on the ground investigating the situation and preparing for a possible outbreak response. We are working closely with the country to ramp up detection, track contacts, be ready to control the spread of the virus”.
“The WHO is deploying experts to support Ghana’s health authorities by bolstering disease surveillance, testing, tracing contacts, preparing to treat patients and working with communities to alert and educate them about the risks and dangers of the disease and to collaborate with the emergency response teams,” he said.
The representative also said, “If confirmed, the cases in Ghana would mark the second time Marburg has been detected in West Africa. Guinea confirmed a single case in an outbreak that was declared over on 16 September 2021, five weeks after the initial case was detected.
“Previous outbreaks and sporadic cases of Marburg in Africa have been reported in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.”