Madrid (EFE).- The Ministry of Health has drawn up an action protocol for the “early detection and management” of patients with the Marburg virus, coinciding with the investigation of a suspected case in Valencia of this disease, similar to Ebola and whose outbreak was detected on the 13th in Equatorial Guinea.
The protocol was endorsed by the Public Health Commission on February 23 and published on the website of the Ministry of Health on the 24th, as reported this Saturday by sources from the Ministry itself.
The same sources have indicated that the study of the case detected in Valencia has begun “to confirm or rule it out” and have stressed that during the process “all the necessary measures have been implemented to control transmission in a preventive manner.”
“The management, handling and transfer protocols for suspected cases of Marburg virus disease are well established. Spain has a network of high-level isolation units for high-risk infectious diseases and the early detection of cases allows us to assess that this event does not currently pose a risk to the general population,” they added.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Health has explained that the health professionals involved in the management of these patients “must follow the infection prevention and control measures established for this type of disease, as well as the correct use of protective equipment individual”.
The suspected case in Valencia corresponds to a 34-year-old man who presents symptoms compatible with the disease and who was in Equatorial Guinea during a period of time that could correspond to the incubation and development of the disease.
The outbreak, the first of the Marburg virus to be declared in Equatorial Guinea, was detected on February 13 in the province of Kié-Ntem, in the west of the continental part of the country and bordering Cameroon and Gabon, after the Organization World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the death of at least nine people from the disease.
The Marburg virus disease is as deadly as Ebola and is estimated to have killed more than 3,500 people in Africa.
Like Ebola, this virus causes sudden bleeding and can cause death in a few days, with an incubation period of 2-21 days and a mortality rate of up to 88%.
The disease, for which there is no vaccine or specific treatment, was detected in 1967 in the German city of Marburg -the origin of its name- by laboratory technicians who were infected while investigating monkeys brought from Uganda.
