The #MarburgVirus is a cousin of #Ebola & there are outbreaks now in Equatorial Guinea, on the borders of Gabon & Cameroon & on other side of Africa, in Tanzania, all on the heels of Ghana outbreak last year. @WHOAFRO @WHO & African CDC are mobilized.
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who.int/emergencies/di…
There are 6 major subtypes of #Marburg which is a bat-carried hemorrhagic RNA virus. The subtypes seem to have different fatality rates in humans -- up to 100%. The current strains have not yet been genotyped, so it is unclear what is going on, @WHO says.
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It's possible these are coincident events.
It's also possible something is going on w/bat populations across equatorial Africa, which would be worrying.
@WHO 's Dr. Abdi Rahman Mahamoud just said in presser there are "more questions than answers."
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who.int/news-room/fact…
Musoke, Ratayczak, Popp, Voege, Ozolin & #Marburg Ravn -- the 6 subtypes.
Only way to see what's going on is to determine if these geographically separated outbreaks are the same strain. The West African appear to be similar to those seen in Sierra Leone & Angola in past.
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And there are several #Marburg #vaccines in the pipelines, says @WHO Dr. Ana Maria Restrepo and vaccines in small supplies, experimental. Efficacy may vary by viral subtype. WHO is trying to combines forces across pharma to test and distribute vaxes.
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Encroachment in rain forests + #Climate changes have had a big impact on bat populations across equatorial Africa. If last year's Ghana strain + now, W. Africa and Tanzania are the same genotypes, there could be a regional risk. Urgent to determine.
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Here are some references on current situation:
voanews.com/a/marburg-viru…
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who.int/emergencies/di…
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statnews.com/2023/03/22/mar…
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news.un.org/en/story/2023/…
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cdc.gov/vhf/marburg/ou…
& these are on #Marburg virus, generally:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
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ecdc.europa.eu/en/infectious-…
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Finally, I interviewed the first known case, Uwe Brinkmann, who acquired his infection in W. Africa, and was flown to Marburg, Germany for treatment (ergo, the name of the virus). His 1967 case is detailed in my book, THE COMING PLAGUE along with further references.
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