The Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health for Preventive Health, Dr. Abdullah Asiri, confirmed that no cases of the “Marburg” virus have been detected so far in the Kingdom, stressing the readiness of the health teams for any developments in this regard.
Asiri explained in statements to “News 24The Ministry has provided the necessary laboratory tests and issued a comprehensive guide to dealing with any suspected cases, while providing intensive training for health practitioners concerned with the initial response to suspected cases at entry points and in health facilities that may deal with suspected cases of hemorrhagic fever.
He pointed out the need not to worry regarding this virus for several reasons, foremost of which is the absence of respiratory viruses, and that the closest known virus to it is the Ebola virus, noting that the natural storehouse of the virus is the fruit bat. The virus causes severe hemorrhagic fever and is infected by people who travel to endemic areas and deal with infected bodily fluids or come into contact with infected animals.
He noted that its symptoms start following an incubation period of 5 to 10 days, and the symptoms are high fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, then vomiting and diarrhea, and symptoms of bleeding and multiple organ failure begin on the seventh day, and the fatality rate reaches 80% in the absence of medical care and drops to 25%. When providing acute medical care.
And he advised to avoid traveling to areas where the disease is active and to avoid exposure to infected people and wild animals in settlement areas, especially caves that contain bats, stressing that there is no approved vaccine for this virus yet.
Regarding the global emergence of the virus, he said that it was discovered in 1967 following monitoring a number of infections in laboratories dealing with African green monkeys, including a laboratory in the German city of Marburg, and the virus was named following it.
