MARBURG: Uganda on high alert!

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda is on high alert following the confirmation of an outbreak of Marburg viral hemorrhagic fever in neighbouring Rwanda.

Dr Sabin Nsanzimana, the Rwandan Minister for Health said on Thursday, that the country had recorded seven new cases of the highly infectious disease bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 36. The total of deaths has risen to 11 cases.

He noted that 323 contacts of confirmed cases were being monitored in isolation facilities to avoid further spread. The outbreak in Rwanda is posing a major risk to Uganda considering that there is a lot of movement and high interaction between people in the two countries.

When contacted by URN on Thursday, Dr Henry Kyobe an infectious diseases expert in the Ministry of Health who is usually in charge of such outbreaks, said Uganda has heightened surveillance but added that a full update on enforcement of measures will be delivered soon.

“Border alone is not the issue, as long as movement of people is ongoing. We can’t stop cross-border transmission, but we can limit and mitigate cross-border transmission; this is the irony of infectious disease epidemiology. And that is what the Government of Uganda is doing”, he said.

While this is being considered the first Marburg outbreak for Rwanda since the last outbreak happened at their border in the Kagera region in Tanzania, Uganda has had recurrent outbreaks of Marburg.

Dr Mary Boyd, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Uganda Director says Uganda has built the capacity to deal with such infections having had several such highly infectious hemorrhagic fevers including Ebola.

She told URN that the already built system for both surveillance, testing and health worker capacity will ably help in case there is a cross-border case.

Meanwhile, in Rwanda, 80% of the infected persons are health workers and Nsanzimana told journalists that 29 health workers got infected partly because the first cases were confusing as they all tested positive for malaria.

Like Malaria, Marburg cases present with high fever, joint pains, and nausea and later on sufferers develop gastro-intestinal complications.

Recognizing fears of possible exportation of cases to neighbouring countries and elsewhere, the Minister says that Rwanda will this evening issue a Travel Notice requiring all travellers either through the airport or the different border points to do in-country screening before exit.

For now, the country is embarking on clinical trials for vaccines to save those at high risk and therapies for those who are already sick.

Nsanzimana says they have received a donation of therapeutics from Global Pharmaceutical Company Gilead and will soon start trials, pointing out that the studies may get launched in the next week.

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