{"id":20150,"date":"2025-01-16T08:21:24","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T09:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20150"},"modified":"2025-01-16T10:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T10:25:08","slug":"tanzania-denies-suspected-marburg-outbreak-after-who-alert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20150","title":{"rendered":"Tanzania denies suspected Marburg outbreak after WHO alert"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tanzania has dismissed a World Health Organisation (WHO) report of a suspected new outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus in the north-west of the country. <\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the global health agency said a total of nine suspected cases were reported over the last five days in the Kagera region, including eight deaths.<\/p>\n

But in a statement, Tanzania’s Health Minister Jenista Mhagama said after samples were analysed, all suspected cases were found negative for Marburg virus. <\/p>\n

She said that the country had strengthened its surveillance systems and disease monitoring.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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We “would like to assure the international organisations, including WHO that we shall always keep them up to date with ongoing developments,” Mhagama said.<\/p>\n

Tanzania experienced its first Marburg outbreak in March 2023 in the Bukoba district. It killed six people and lasted for nearly two months.<\/p>\n

The highly infectious disease is similar to Ebola, with symptoms including fever, muscle pains, diarrhoea, vomiting and, in some cases, death through extreme blood loss.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of “further cases in the coming days as disease surveillance improves” in the latest suspected outbreak in Tanzania. <\/p>\n

The WHO reported that patients, including healthcare workers, had been identified and were being monitored.<\/p>\n

It added that the country’s rapid response teams had been deployed to help identify suspected cases and contain the outbreak.<\/p>\n

The WHO cautioned that the risk of the suspected virus spreading in the region remained “high” because Kagera was a transit hub with much cross-border movement to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda.<\/p>\n

“We do not recommend travel or trade restrictions with Tanzania at this time,” Dr Tedros said on X.<\/p>\n

The WHO said the global risk posed by the outbreak was “low”, and there were no concerns at this stage of the disease spreading internationally. <\/p>\n

Following the reports, a team of experts was immediately deployed to Kagera region, where they collected specimens, said Tanzania’s health minister.<\/p>\n

She said that laboratory results had ruled out the suspected Marburg outbreak but the minister did not clarify the total number of suspected cases investigated. <\/p>\n

In December, neighbouring Rwanda declared an outbreak in the country, which had infected 66 people and killed 15, was over. <\/p>\n

On average, the Marburg virus kills half of the people it infects<\/a>, according to the WHO.<\/p>\n

The Marburg virus is transmitted to humans from fruit bats and then through contact with bodily fluids of infected individuals.<\/p>\n

There are no specific treatments or a vaccine for the virus, although trials are under way. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tanzania has dismissed a World Health Organisation (WHO) report of a suspected new outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus in the north-west of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20152,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20153,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20150\/revisions\/20153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}