Two people are being medically examined in Hamburg because they are suspected of being infected with the life-threatening Marburg virus. According to the Hamburg social authorities, one of the two people had recently worked in a hospital in Rwanda where people infected with the virus were treated.
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The Marburg virus can cause high fever and symptoms such as muscle pain, abdominal cramps, diarrhea and bloody vomit. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 24 to 88 percent of those infected have died in previous outbreaks.
According to the US health authority CDC, there has been no outbreak of the disease in Germany since 1967. The pathogen is named after the German city because laboratory workers there were infected with the previously unknown virus in test monkeys in 1967.
People become infected through direct contact with the body fluids of infected people, such as blood, and not through the air. The incubation period is 2 to 21 days. According to the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM), one of the reservoirs and a vector for the Marburg virus is the Egyptian fruit bat.
From Rwanda via Frankfurt to Hamburg
According to authorities, the two people now being treated in Hamburg flew on a plane from Rwanda to Frankfurt on Wednesday night and from there took a train to the Hanseatic city. During the trip, one of the two contacted doctors in Hamburg because he was worried that he had become infected with a tropical disease in Rwanda. According to consistent media reports, it is a medical student in his mid-20s.
A fire department spokesman said the man had flu-like symptoms and was slightly nauseous. He didn’t have a fever.
The responsible health authority in Hamburg then decided to immediately isolate both people at the main train station and take them to a special area at the Eppendorf University Hospital (UKE) for further examination. All medically necessary examinations were started there immediately. A variety of diseases can usually be diagnosed within 24 hours.
As a precautionary measure, the contact details of train passengers who may have had contact with the two were recorded. The authority said quarantine measures are currently not necessary. According to Deutsche Bahn, an average of 275 passengers sat on the train.
Outbreak in Rwanda
Marburg fever recently broke out in Rwanda. So far, ten patients have died from the viral disease, Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana reported on Platform X. A total of 29 cases were confirmed as of October 1st. The 19 patients currently being treated are mostly medical staff and are isolated.
Maximilian Gertler, tropical medicine specialist at the Berlin Charité, is not surprised that it is mainly healthcare workers who are sick in Rwanda. “The perfidious thing about the infection is that it starts so unspecifically, with banal symptoms that could also be malaria or a flu-like infection,” says the doctor, who has also worked for an aid organization during an Ebola outbreak. “With all of these things, as a nurse or doctor in the emergency room you are always tempted to take a quick blood sample.” There is a risk of virus transmission.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:241002-930-250308/5
Two people are being medically examined in Hamburg because they are suspected of being infected with the life-threatening Marburg virus. According to the Hamburg social authorities, one of the two people had recently worked in a hospital in Rwanda where people infected with the virus were treated.
The Marburg virus can cause high fever and symptoms such as muscle pain, abdominal cramps, diarrhea and bloody vomit. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 24 to 88 percent of those infected have died in previous outbreaks.