Uganda’s Ministry of Health confirmed on Monday that a health worker recently died of Marburg, a highly infectious disease that manifests as a viral hemorrhagic fever.
Further tests will prove whether another man who appeared to be suffering from a hemorrhagic fever actually has Marburg, which belongs in the same family as the dreaded Ebola virus, said Dr. Issa Makumbi, an epidemiologist with Uganda’s Ministry of Health.
Eighty people who are thought to have had contact with the dead man were being “vigorously” monitored for signs and symptoms of the disease after tests confirmed that the 30-year-old, who worked as a radiographer in a Kampala hospital, died of Marburg. The man had a headache and abdominal pains, diarrhoea and was vomiting blood before he died on September 28.
Uganda has a history of hemorrhagic fevers, including an outbreak of Ebola in 2000 that killed at least 224 people over several weeks. Later outbreaks were successfully contained within days and killed far fewer people. Ugandan health officials say they can contain what could be an outbreak of Marburg, for which there is no vaccine or cure, by drawing on their past experience fighting Ebola.
President Yoweri Museveni urged Ugandans to remain “calm but vigilant,” to avoid shaking hands, and to report “suspicious cases”.
Marburg was first noticed and isolated in 1967 in the central German town that gave the disease its name.
