Equatorial Guinea today confirmed its first-ever outbreak of Marburg virus disease. Preliminary tests carried out following the deaths of at least nine people in the country’s eastern Kie Ntem Province turned out positive on one of the samples for the viral haemorrhagic fever.*

Equatorial Guinean health authorities sent samples to the Institut Pasteur reference laboratory in Senegal with support from World Health Organization (WHO) to determine the cause of the disease after an alert by a district health official on 7 February. Of the eight samples tested at Institut Pasteur, one turned out positive for the virus. So far nine deaths and 16 suspected cases with symptoms including fever, fatigue and blood-stained vomit and diarrhoea have been reported.

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