Guinea Reports West Africa's First Known Marburg Virus Death

CONAKRY, GUINEA - Authorities in West Africa have confirmed the region's first known case of Marburg virus after at least one person in Guinea died of the hemorrhagic fever disease, the World Health Organization said Monday.

Health officials said they were trying to track down everyone who might have come into contact with the patient, who had sought medical treatment in Gueckedou.  The case was reported in the same part of Guinea where the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic started and ultimately killed at least 11,325 people. A much smaller outbreak of Ebola earlier this year also hit the same area near Guinea's borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia, leaving 12 dead.  The Marburg virus belongs to the same family as Ebola, and previously outbreaks have erupted elsewhere across Africa in Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.