A scientist checks for Marburg virus antibodies in a bat near a lead and gold mine in Kitaka inside the Kitomi forest reserve, about 300km from Uganda’s capital Kampala
Kigali October 7–Rwanda has launched a trial of a vaccine against the Marburg virus to try to combat an outbreak of the Ebola-like disease in the East African country.
“The vaccination is starting today immediately,” Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana said at a news conference on Sunday in the capital, Kigali.
The Marburg virus has killed 12 people in Rwanda since it was declared an outbreak on September 27. Authorities said at the time that the first cases had been found among patients in health facilities. There is still no confirmation of the source of the outbreak.
The experimental vaccine, currently in phase 2 trials, was provided by the US-based Sabin Vaccine Institute.
“The vaccines have been tested by health officials here in Rwanda and the standards bureau,” Nsanzimana told reporters.
He added the vaccinations would focus on those “most at risk, most exposed healthcare workers working in treatment centres, in the hospitals, in ICU, in emergency, but also the close contacts of the confirmed cases”.
“We believe that, with vaccines, we have a powerful tool to stop the spread of this virus,” the minister said.
The Sabin Vaccine Institute said in a statement on Saturday it had sent an “initial shipment of approximately 700 vaccine doses”, adding that trials had already been under way in neighbouring Uganda and Kenya, with “no safety concerns reported to date”.
The Rwandan government said there were 46 confirmed cases, with 29 of them in isolation. Health authorities have identified at least 400 people who came into contact with confirmed cases of the virus.
Like Ebola, the Marburg virus is believed to originate in fruit bats and spreads between people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces, such as contaminated bedsheets.
Without treatment, Marburg can be fatal in up to 88 percent of people who fall ill with the disease.
Its symptoms include fever, muscle pains, diarrhoea, vomiting and, in some cases, extreme blood loss, often leading to death.
Marburg outbreaks and individual cases have in the past been recorded in Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Ghana, according to the World Health Organization.
