Eight New Cases In The Current Guinea Marburg Outbreak -- Concerns For A Wider Outbreak, Across Geopolitical Borders, Now: WHO

We mentioned that the current outbreak in Tanzania -- and the one in Equatorial Guinea (which is likely the origin point for the Tanzanian cases), while smallish in overall numbers of confirmed cases, health workers are continuing to turn up new pockets of illness -- which would suggest there may be many more who've not yet been reported, or have even died, undetected -- across a considerably wider geographical area. [In all, 161 people are known contacts of contacts at this point, and are being monitored.]

And so, one of the WHO's current goals in aggressive testing is to see if the confirmed cases may be contained in two countries: Tanzania, and Guinea -- but not Cameroon. The best case, then, would be that they are all from the same Marburg's strain. That at least would help to set a lower limit, on the likely effectiveness of the coming vaccine candidates. Here is the latest, from the Seattle Times:

. . .Equatorial Guinea has confirmed another eight cases of the “highly virulent” Marburg virus, a deadly hemorrhagic fever with no authorized vaccine or treatment.

There are two known current outbreaks of Marburg on the African continent. Tanzania this week announced eight cases of Marburg, including five deaths. One of the people killed was a health worker. . . .

“Our pathogen genomics team will sequence samples from both places. . . and see if there is a relationship between the current two outbreaks,” the acting director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ahmed Ogwell, told journalists on Thursday. He said results should be known within the week.

The new cases in Equatorial Guinea were found in the provinces of Kie Ntem, Litoral and Centro Sur, all with borders with Cameroon and Gabon. . . .

“The areas reporting cases are about 93 miles apart, suggesting wider transmission of the virus,” the United Nations agency said. . . .

Now you know -- but this is disconcerting news, to be certain. Onward, on a gray Sweet Sixteen-NCAA tourney (and possible indictment!?!) day. . . grinning, just the same.

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