Rwanda to start vaccine trials for Marburg disease in a few weeks

Rwanda is poised to start vaccine and therapeutic clinical trials in the next few weeks to treat Marburg disease, its health minister said on Thursday, 3 October 2024, as the African nation battles its first outbreak of the viral fever that has killed 11.

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The disease was detected in late September, with 36 cases reported so far, health ministry data shows.

"This is part of our efforts to help people recover quickly by utilising vaccines and medicines specifically developed to fight this outbreak, currently in the final phase of research," the minister, Sabin Nsanzimana, said.

"We are collaborating with the pharmaceutical companies that developed these, alongside the World Health Organization to expedite the process through multilateral collaboration."

He said the government was speaking to companies based in the US and Europe.

The ministry is monitoring 410 people who have been in contact with those infected, assistant health minister Yvan Butera said earlier. Five other people tested negative but were awaiting the results of further tests.

A viral hemorrhagic fever, Marburg symptoms include high fever, severe headaches and malaise which typically develop within seven days of infection, according to the WHO.

With a fatality rate as high as 88%, it belongs to the same virus family as that responsible for Ebola, and is transmitted to humans by fruit bats, before spreading through contact with the bodily fluids of those infected.

Neighbouring Tanzania had cases of Marburg in 2023, as did Uganda in 2017.