Health workers monitored after Marburg outbreak in Uganda

Over 60 health workers in Uganda are being monitored after the outbreak of deadly Marburg hemorrhagic fever in the country.

Health Minister Elioda Tumwesigye, who announced the outbreak here Sunday, said the health workers interacted with the index case which died Sep 28, Xinhua reported.

The index case was a health worker who worked at Mengo Hospital in the capital Kampala and at a health centre in Mpigi district in central Uganda.

The minister said 38 health workers are being monitored at Mengo Hospital while 22 others are monitored at a health centre in Mpigi.

Tumwesigye said 20 other people who were involved in the burial process of the deceased are also being monitored in Kasese district in western Uganda.

He said the World Health Organisation (WHO) has provided technical and logistical support to contain the disease.

The Marburg virus was last reported in Uganda in 2012.

According to the WHO, Marburg is a severe and highly fatal disease caused by a virus from the same family as the one that causes Ebola hemorrhagic fever.

The illness caused by Marburg virus begins abruptly, with severe headache and malaise.

Case fatality rates have varied greatly, from 25 percent in the initial laboratory-associated outbreak in 1967, to more than 80 percent in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 1998-2000, to even higher in the outbreak that began in Angola in late 2004.