The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on January 14, 2025, that a suspected outbreak of the Marburg virus in Tanzania had killed eight people, stressing that the risk of spread in the country and the region was " pupil" . " We are aware of nine cases so far, including eight deaths. We expect more cases in the coming days as disease surveillance improves.", said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on X.
Marburg causes a highly infectious hemorrhagic fever. It is transmitted by certain bats and belongs to the same family as the Ebola virus. Its mortality rate rises to nearly 90%.
Several worrying factors
The UN agency said it informed its member states on Monday of a " outbreak of suspected Marburg virus disease in the Kagera region", located in the northwest of Tanzania. This region had already been the scene of a first outbreak of Marburg in March 2023, which lasted almost two months and resulted in 9 recorded cases including 6 deaths, according to the WHO.
The WHO further stated that the risk at the national level was " pupil " due to several worrying factors, including the fact that " the source of the outbreak is currently unknown" She added that the risk of spread at the regional level was also " pupil", because of the " strategic location of Kagera", a region through which Tanzanians pass to go to the " Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo“.
The announcement of this new outbreak comes less than a month after the WHO declared the end of a Marburg fever epidemic in neighboring Rwanda, which lasted three months and killed 15 people.
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