Six additional laboratory-confirmed cases of Marburg disease have been reported in Equatorial Guinea, bringing the total number to 15, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.
The outbreak of the deadly disease in the West African country started in February.
Last month the West African country confirmed nine deaths from the “highly virulent” Marburg virus, a deadly hemorrhagic fever with no authorized vaccine or treatment.
Like Ebola, the Marburg virus originates in bats and spreads between people via close contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, or surfaces, like contaminated bed sheets. Without treatment, Marburg can be fatal in up to 88% of people who fall ill with the disease.
Marburg outbreaks and individual cases have in the past been recorded in Angola, Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Ghana, according to the WHO.
Last week Tanzania declared that an outbreak of the disease in the country was over. The authorities in that country, the Africa CDC and the World Health Organisation jointly worked to to contain the outbreak which killed at least five people.
The rare virus was first identified in 1967 after it caused simultaneous outbreaks of disease in laboratories in Marburg, Germany, and Belgrade, Serbia. Seven people died who were exposed to the virus while conducting research on monkeys.
