Mahaz News
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Cameroonian authorities detected two suspected circumstances of Marburg illness on Monday in Olamze, a commune on the border with Equatorial Guinea, the general public well being delegate for the area, Robert Mathurin Bidjang, stated on Tuesday.
Equatorial Guinea formally declared its first outbreak of the Marburg virus, an sickness much like Ebola, on Monday.
Neighboring Cameroon had restricted motion alongside the border to keep away from contagion following reviews of an unknown, lethal hemorrhagic fever in Equatorial Guinea final week.
“On the 13th of February, we had two suspected cases. These are two 16-year-old children, a boy and a girl, who have no previous travel history to the affected areas in Equatorial Guinea,” Bidjang stated at a gathering in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde.
Forty-two individuals who got here into contact with the 2 youngsters have been recognized and make contact with tracing was ongoing, he added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) stated earlier on Tuesday that it was rising its epidemiological surveillance in Equatorial Guinea.
The small Central African nation has up to now reported 9 deaths in addition to 16 suspected circumstances of Marburg virus illness, with signs together with fever, fatigue, and blood-stained vomit and diarrhea, in line with the WHO.
“Surveillance in the field has been intensified,” stated George Ameh, WHO’s nation consultant in Equatorial Guinea.
“Contact tracing, as you know, is a cornerstone of the response. We have…redeployed the COVID-19 teams that were there for contact tracing and quickly retrofitted them to really help us out.”
Equatorial Guinea quarantined greater than 200 folks and restricted motion final week in its Kie-Ntem province, the place the hemorrhagic fever was first detected.
Marburg virus is a extremely infectious illness that may have a fatality price of as much as 88%, in line with the WHO. There aren’t any vaccines or antiviral therapies accredited to deal with it.
“We’re working on a 30-day response plan where we should be able to quantify what are the exact measures and quantify what are the exact needs,” Ameh stated.
He added that the nation’s authorities had not reported any new suspected circumstances within the final 48 hours.
Source web site: www.cnn.com
