Anne Mugisa, Fred Ouma and Apollo Mubiru
1 August 2007
Kampala — THE Ministry of Health has dispatched an emergency response team to Kitaka in Kamwenge district, some 250km west of Kampala, where at least two cases of Marburg haemorrhagic fever have been confirmed.
Health minister Dr. Stephen Malinga has also travelled to the region to ascertain the outbreak of the deadly virus, which is similar to Ebola.
Both cases, of whom one died, were gold miners in a privately-owned mine situated in Kakasi Forest Reserve in Kamwenge district.
"Samples we sent to Atlanta US have confirmed Marburg disease," the director general of health services, Dr. Sam Zaramba, told The New Vision. "A team of experts is on its way to reinforce the district team already on the ground. We also intend to close down the mine until it is deemed safe."
The team, led by Dr. Julius Lutwama of the Uganda Virus Institute, consists of scientists from Makerere University Institute of Public Health, the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation.
One of the tasks of the team, Zaramba explained, was to track down, isolate and monitor all persons who had come in close contact with the two victims.
"We have contacted the mine-owners and are tracking all workers and people who could have looked after the victims or come into direct physical contact with them. With or without symptoms, we are going to take their blood samples for testing," he said, adding: "Because the Marburg disease is rare, when you get one case, it immediately becomes an epidemic."
He called on the public to remain calm, arguing that the infection rate of Marburg was far lower than that of Ebola.
He also noted that if no additional cases were reported within 21 days of the outbreak, the epidemic would be declared over. The two victims fell sick two weeks ago, leaving one more week to go.
"The first outbreak was reported in Germany in the 1960s, the second was in South Africa in the 1970s, followed by Uganda, where 19 people from one family in Kamuli died in 1977. Another outbreak was in Kenya in the 1980s," he explained.
According to records of the Ministry of Health, the latest Marburg outbreak was in 1999 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where at least 52 people died, mainly gold miners in the remote northeastern part of the country.
The Minister of State for Health, Dr. Richard Nduhuura, briefed Parliament yesterday about the measures taken by the Government to contain the spread. He said more blood samples from the survivor would be taken and sent to the US for research.
He also told MPs that a separate Cabinet team, headed by Vice-President Prof. Gilbert Bukenya, had mapped out a national strategy on how to curb the outbreak.
He later told the press that literature about the disease would be given to Members of Parliament to sensitise their constituents, in addition to efforts of the health teams.
The Marburg fever, which causes death within 48 hours, is thought to reside in monkeys and spread by bats and rats.
Like Ebola, it does not respond to treatment. Its symptoms include high fever, headache, vomiting and bleeding from the gums and skin.
Even in the best hospitals, the virus can be expected to kill up to a quarter of the people who get infected with it.
It is extremely rare and, for that reason, researchers will want to find out as much as possible about this latest outbreak.
The virus is named after the North German town of Marburg, where a laboratory worker, who was taking blood from Ugandan monkeys, became ill and died in 1967.
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