Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 08 Apr 2023, 08:41 am Print
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Washington: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued an alert alarming health officials about the rare Ebola-like Marburg virus which has been reported from two African nations.
" Currently, there is no evidence to suggest that these two outbreaks are related; most experts agree that these represent two independent animal-to-human spillover events," CDC said in the alert.
"To date, no confirmed cases of MVD related to these outbreaks have been reported in the United States or other countries outside Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania.," read the statement.
"This Health Advisory provides information about these outbreaks to increase awareness of the risk of imported cases in the United States. It also summarizes CDC’s recommendations for case identification, testing, and clinical laboratory biosafety considerations in the United States," the statement further said.
Marburg virus disease is a rare but highly fatal viral hemorrhagic fever caused by two zoonotic viruses, Marburg virus and Ravn virus, that are closely related to ebolaviruses within family Filoviridae.
In February and March 2023, two distinct outbreaks of Marburg virus were reported in Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania.
These outbreaks mark the first time that Marburg virus has been identified in either Equatorial Guinea or Tanzania, though the virus has been identified previously in neighboring countries and the reservoir, the Egyptian fruit bat, is known to be present in both countries.
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