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How to Fight One of the Deadliest Viruses on Earth

“How bad is the Marburg virus?” in 5 min.

Gil Pires
Microbial Instincts
5 min readNov 28, 2024

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Photo by Serrah Galos on Usplash.

On September 27th, Rwanda reported an outbreak of Marburg virus disease for the first time in its history, raising the concern of health experts around the world. After all, Marburg is one of the deadliest viral infections on earth.

With a case fatality rate (CFR) between 24% and 88% for multi-patient outbreaks, Marburg virus disease, also known as Marburg hemorrhagic fever, is only matched by Ebola in its capacity to kill an infected person. But their daunting CFR is not the only thing these two have in common.

In fact, Marburg and Ebola are both zoonotic infections caused by a family of viruses called filoviruses — which explains their similarities. Marburg specifically may be caused by two different filoviruses: the Marburg virus (MARV) and the Ravn virus (RAVV).

Another similar feature shared by both diseases is their clinical presentation. Like the latter, Marburg manifests abruptly and is marked by high fever, headaches and muscle pain. Within three days, patients begin to display gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and severe diarrhea — which in turn leads to dehydration and consequently to low blood pressure.

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Microbial Instincts
Microbial Instincts

Published in Microbial Instincts

Decoding the microbial angle to health and microbial world (under Medium Boost program).

Gil Pires
Gil Pires

Written by Gil Pires

Junior Consultant | MSc in Biotechnology

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