By Ignatius Ssuuna
KIGALI, Rwanda – Rwanda has quashed a recent outbreak of the highly virulent Marburg virus, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the government of Rwanda. The announcement was made after 42 days had elapsed without registering new cases of the viral hemorrhagic fever. Marburg has a fatality rate of up to 88 percent.
In a joint press conference with WHO officials, Rwanda Minister of Health Dr. Sabin Nzanzimana said that while the country has defeated the Marburg virus, risks remain to humans from the bats that carry the disease.
“We believe [the danger is] not completely over because we still face risks, especially from bats. We are continuing to build new strategies and deploy advanced technologies to track their movements, understand their behavior,” Nzanzimana cautioned.
He added that Rwanda needs to build stronger surveillance capacity to respond to health challenges in the future.
Dr. Brian Chirombo, the WHO representative in Rwanda, commended the government for its performance tackling the outbreak.
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“I thank the government of Rwanda, its leadership, and Rwandans in general, for the strong response to achieve this success – but the battle continues,” Chirombo said.
The east African nation discharged the last Marburg patient on November 8, which began the mandatory 42-day countdown to declare the end of the outbreak. The country has reported no new confirmed cases since October 30, 2024.
September 27 was when Rwanda first declared the outbreak, and a total of 15 deaths and 66 cases were reported. The majority of the cases were of health workers who became infected while providing emergency care to their colleagues and patients.
Rwanda’s investigation into Marburg’s origins showed the initial known case was a 27-year-old man who had been exposed to the virus upon contact with a cave-dwelling bat species. The man had sought treatment at Kigali’s King Faisal Hospital, thus exposing many health workers.
The country’s quick success in controlling the spread of the disease is credited to effective coordination efforts led by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), the WHO, and other international partners. Rwanda provided prompt and transparent communications with the public through regular press conferences.
“Enhanced nationwide surveillance for early case detection, intensive contact tracing, and case isolation were strong factors in ending Marburg,” said a statement from Africa CDC. Rwanda has upgraded its laboratory testing capacity and treatment facilities to meet global standards, and this combined with a vigorous public awareness campaign brought the disease under control.
The virus belongs to the same family as the Ebola virus. Illness begins abruptly with a high fever, severe headache, and malaise, and many patients develop severe hemorrhagic symptoms within seven days.
Marburg outbreaks and individual cases have previously been recorded in Angola, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The virus was first identified in 1967 after it caused simultaneous outbreaks of disease in laboratories in the German city of Marburg and in Belgrade, in what was then Yugoslavia.
The WHO said that Rwanda’s efforts to defeat the disease leveraged its extensive network of almost 60 000 community health workers, who conducted active case tracking and testing of any suspected cases, ensuring that no chain of transmission was missed.
Rwanda’s health authorities said the country has put in place processes to monitor the survivors of Marburg over the next two years, to see if there are clinical complications.
