Tanzania is refuting the report from the World Health Organization regarding the outbreak of Marburg disease in the country’s Lake Victoria Zone Regions.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), eight people have been reported dead in the Kagera region following an outbreak of a strange disease whose victims feature all symptoms related to Marburg.
But Tanzania, though the country’s Minister of Health, Jenista Mhagama denies the reports.
According to a statement from the Ministry, Tanzania sent a team of health experts to take samples from the people suspected to have been affected with the strange disease.
Minister Mhagama insists that after laboratory test results came out, Marburg infections were ruled out.
“Tanzania has strengthened the country’s surveillance systems and disease monitoring and would like to assure the international organizations, including WHO that we shall always keep them up to date with ongoing developments,” Mhagama maintained.
Previously, the World Health Organization stated that experts were waiting for lab results to confirm the diagnoses, but added that the patients had typical Marburg symptoms, including headache, high fever, back pain, diarrhoea, vomiting with blood, physical weakness, and later on, external haemorrhaging.
The Ebola-like virus, according to the World Health Organization, was identified in the Biharamulo and Muleba districts, which are in the Kagera region on the shores of Lake Victoria, bordering Rwanda and Uganda.
The WHO added that among the infected there are several healthcare workers, with a case fatality rate of 89 percent.
“We would expect further cases in coming days as disease surveillance improves,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General of WHO revealed in a media report.
If it was Marburg then its virus mainly spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of a sick person or surfaces that have been contaminated with those fluids, meaning healthcare workers tend to be at higher risk.
No vaccine or treatment has been authorized for the disease, though several are currently being tested.
The World Health Organization had warned that risk of infection is currently high in Tanzania and the broader region – including Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – but low globally, according to the agency.
“We recommend neighbouring countries be on alert and prepared to manage potential cases,” Tedros said.
The last known outbreak was in Rwanda, where Marburg killed 15 people and sickened 66 in the course of 2024.
By December 2024 health authorities declared the outbreak over after no new cases were reported for 42 days.
Earlier in 2023, another Marburg outbreak in Tanzania’s Kagera region lasted nearly two months, with nine cases and six deaths.
“Zoonotic reservoirs, such as fruit bats, remain endemic to the area,” the World Health Organization points out.