The health ministry of Uganda has sent a team to do a Marburg spread risk assessment on the Tanzania-Uganda border following an outbreak of the virus disease in Kagera, Tanzania. Kagera is on the Tanzania-Uganda border.

Ministry spokesperson, Emmanuel Ainebyoona says they have dispatched teams to do risk assessment in the districts that neighbour Tanzania, including Isingiro, Kyotera and Kalangala. The teams are also doing a risk assessment in Kampala.

Outbreak in Tanzania

In a media address on Tuesday evening, Tanzania’s health minister Dr Dorothy Gwajima confirmed that the strange disease that had put its government and population on tenterhooks for more than a week is Marburg Virus Disease.

Kagera region in the northwestern part of Tanzania covers Mutukula town, a major border point for trading between the two countries.

Last week, Tanzania’s health ministry declared an outbreak of unnamed disease that had already claimed five lives.

The illness has been detected in seven people with symptoms including fever, vomiting, bleeding from different parts is the body, liver and kidney failure.

This epidemic follows an Ebola Virus Disease outbreak in Uganda, that lasted nearly four months and claimed the lives of 55 people before the Government of Uganda in January declared its end.

About Marburg

A 2019 research study by BMC Public health, with lead researchers including Prof. William Bazeyo, defines MVD as one of the viral haemorrhagic fevers that affects both humans and primates.

The research article noted that the first outbreaks of Marburg occurred in Germany in 1967 with links to monkeys, which were imported from Uganda for research purposes.

Most of the Marburg disease outbreaks in Uganda have been linked to bat species “Rousettus aegypti.” The disease is caused by a filovirus similar to Ebola that belongs to the family Filoviridae.

The most recent outbreak of Marburg in Uganda was in Kween district in 2017, linked to the consumption of meat from a bat by a hunter. Other outbreaks have been in Ibanda and Kamwenge districts in western Uganda.

The paper said the impacts of Marburg disease outbreaks are similar to those of other hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola that have also caused havoc in  Eastern Africa in the recent past.

“Apart from effects related to morbidity and mortality, the disease disrupts the country’s economy, causes social suffering of the affected families and reduces household productivity among others. Its ability to spread beyond borders implies it can disrupt trade between countries reducing foreign exchange,” the article said.