Disease information about Marburg virus disease
After travelling in tropical areas, you should always contact your healthcare provider by calling call +46 771-117700 if you have a fever or other symptoms of an infection to rule out malaria and other tropical diseases. Be sure to let them know if you have travelled to areas where the Marburg virus is present.
Marburg virus can cause haemorrhagic fever with a high mortality rate. The disease is rare, but has been reported from a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
What causes Marburg virus disease and how is it spread?
Marburg virus is an RNA virus belonging to the filovirus family that causes haemorrhagic fever. Ebola viruses belong to the same family.
Today, the natural host is considered to be bats (fruit bat). The virus is transmitted to humans from these bats, for example after spending time in caves where the bats live. Marburg virus is transmitted between humans through infected body fluids such as saliva and blood, posing a particular risk to family members and healthcare staff. An additional risk of spreading the virus is through contact with dead bodies during the preparation and realisation of a funeral.
Symptoms and treatment
The incubation period, i.e. the time from infection to the onset of symptoms, is 2–21 days. The disease is characterised by a rapid onset of high fever, headache, muscle aches and general feeling of illness. Nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea and chest pain may also occur. At the end of the course of disease, haemorrhages may occur on the skin and in internal organs. The mortality rate is very high.
There is no specific treatment, care is focused on treating the patient’s symptoms.
Epidemiological surveillance and microbiological diagnostics
The spread of the disease is monitored by the Public Health Agency of Sweden through infection control notifications and external monitoring.
The disease is diagnosed by detecting the genome of the infectious agent using molecular biology methods at the laboratory of the Public Health Agency of Sweden. Later in the course of the disease, virus-specific antibodies can be detected in the patient’s blood. Marburg virus is included in the Public Health Agency emergency diagnostics.
Preventive measures
Avoid contact with fruit bats and their droppings. Family members and healthcare staff should always take care to avoid contact with the blood and body fluids of the infected person. Strict protective clothing is required when caring for sick people.
Notification and response to cases or outbreaks
According to the Communicable Diseases Act, Marburg virus disease is classified as dangerous to society, and cases are reported to the county medical officer and to the Public Health Agency of Sweden. If haemorrhagic fever is suspected, extra infection control measures should be taken and the patient should be tested and admitted to an isolation ward. If the test is positive, the patient should be moved to a high isolation ward.
Remarks
The name comes from the fact that the infection was diagnosed in 1967 during an outbreak in the city of Marburg, Germany, when laboratory staff where infected by monkey tissues imported from Uganda.