March 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The authorities of Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda have announced the reinforcement of their surveillance on the border with Tanzania after the authorities of this country have confirmed an outbreak of the Marburg virus, similar to Ebola, which has left at least five dead.
The Kenyan Ministry of Health has called on the health authorities at the border crossings with Tanzania to intensify their activities and has stressed that all passengers entering the country must be tested to contain the outbreak.
A document circulated among Kenyan officials stresses that Tanzania issued an alert for the virus on March 17 and stresses that “supervision of travelers arriving from this region must be strengthened,” according to the Kenyan newspaper ‘The Star’.
Along these lines, the Government of Rwanda has reported that it has strengthened its capacity to carry out analyzes “in various areas of the country” to “avoid imported cases.” “We have strengthened active supervision,” said Edson Rwangasore of the Department of Public Health Supervision, Emergency Preparedness and Response.
“Despite the movement of people across the border in Rusumo, the risks of importing cases into Rwanda are low, given that the affected area (in Tanzania) is not close,” he said, while confirming “tests temperature to all passengers entering the country”, according to the Rwandan newspaper ‘The New Times’.
Likewise, the spokesman for the Uganda Ministry of Health, Emmanuel Ainebyoona, stressed that the authorities have reinforced surveillance tasks at the Kasensero, Kikagati and Mutukula passes, as reported by the Ugandan newspaper ‘The Independent’.
Virus symptoms include headache, vomiting blood, and muscle aches. The disease is transmitted through contact with infected blood or other body fluids and tissues. There are no approved vaccines or antiviral treatments to treat the virus, which has an 88 percent fatality rate.
In Africa, previous outbreaks and sporadic cases have been reported in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda. Guinea confirmed a case in August 2021 in Gueckedou, while Ghana did the same with two cases in July 2022. Equatorial Guinea confirmed an outbreak in February that has so far left 20 dead, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). .
