WHO says Guinea monitoring 155 contacts after confirmed Marburg case

DAKAR - Health authorities in Guinea are monitoring 155 people who may have been in contact with a confirmed case of Marburg virus disease, a highly infectious haemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, a World Health Organization official said on Tuesday.

The Marburg case, which the WHO said was the first in West Africa, was confirmed in Gueckedou in southeastern Guinea. The region was the origin of the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, the deadliest in history, and saw a brief resurgence of Ebola this year. Georges Ki-Zerbo, the WHO country head in Guinea, said Marburg had been circulating in animals, particularly bats, in southern Guinea and neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia.