FACTBOX-What is the Marburg Fever Virus?
Pastor Dale Morgan
*FACTBOX-What is the Marburg Fever Virus?*
22 Aug 2007 16:34:47 GMT
Source: Reuters
Aug 22 (Reuters) - Fruit bats that roost in caves are apparently the
source of Marburg virus, which causes a deadly hemorrhagic fever related
to Ebola virus, researchers said.
Tests of 1,100 bats of various species turned up the virus in only one
common species of fruit bats, the team at the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and elsewhere reported.
The study suggests that Marburg may be more common than previously thought.
Here are some key facts about the virus:
* The Marburg virus, a close relative of the feared Ebola virus, affects
humans and non-human primates, causing high fever, bleeding and
vomiting. A 2005 outbreak in Angola had a death rate in excess of 90
percent.
* Indigenous to Africa, the virus was first identified in 1967 when an
outbreak of haemorrhagic fever in humans occurred in Marburg and
Frankfurt in Germany and in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia, following
the import of infected monkeys from Uganda.
* There is no vaccine or treatment for the virus, which spreads through
blood, sweat, tears and saliva, often in hospitals.
* A major outbreak of Marburg occurred among gold miners in the
Democratic Republic of Congo between 1998 and 2000, killing nearly 130
out of 154 people infected. Of the 386 people known to have been
infected in the world's worst outbreak in Angola in 2005, 348 died.
Uganda has recently contained a small outbreak.
Sources: Reuters, U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the
World Health Organisation.