What is the deadly Marburg virus and where has it spread?
Al Jazeera
World Health Organization warns outbreak risk is ‘very high at the national level’ in Rwanda, but low globally.
Rwanda is fighting its first outbreak of the “highly virulent” Marburg virus which was first reported in late September.
As of Thursday, 11 people were reported to have died of the virus in Rwanda. The health minister announced the country will begin clinical trials of experimental vaccines and treatments.
So what is the Marburg virus and how concerned should we be?
Marburg is from the same family as Ebola, namely the Filoviridae family (filovirus) of viruses. It has been described as more severe than Ebola.
It causes a haemorrhagic fever, which is a type of fever that can damage the walls of blood vessels, according to information from the Mayo Clinic. Other diseases which produce this type of fever include dengue and yellow fever.
