Six dead from Marburg viral disease in Rwanda

Lab technicians conducting tests on a suspected disease outbreak. [Getty Images]

Six people have been killed in Rwanda in an outbreak of Marburg virus, a highly infectious hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, the country's health ministry said on Saturday.

The highly virulent microbe causes severe fever, often accompanied by bleeding and organ failure.

Some 20 patients were being treated for the illness, Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana told local media.

"Those infected and the deceased were mainly health workers," he said, adding that efforts were underway to trace and test those who had come in contact with them.

Marburg is part of the so-called filovirus family that also includes Ebola, which has wreaked havoc in several previous outbreaks in Africa.

Neighbouring Tanzania reported cases of the disease in 2023, while Uganda experienced its last outbreak in 2017. The three countries share porous borders.

The suspected natural source of the Marburg virus is the African fruit bat, which carries the pathogen but does not fall sick from it.

The virus takes its name from the German city of Marburg, where it was first identified in 1967 in a lab where workers had been in contact with infected green monkeys imported from Uganda.

The animals can pass the virus to primates in close proximity, including humans, and human-to-human transmission then occurs through contact with blood or other body fluids.

Fatality rates in confirmed cases have ranged from 24 per cent to 88 per cent in previous outbreaks, depending on the virus strain and case management, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

There are currently no vaccines or antiviral treatments, but potential treatments, including blood products, immune and drug therapies, as well as early candidate vaccines, are being evaluated.