{"id":34111,"date":"2023-03-27T01:52:47","date_gmt":"2023-03-26T20:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34111"},"modified":"2025-04-20T09:02:29","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T03:32:29","slug":"marburg-virus-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/marburg-virus-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Marburg Virus Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Marburg virus disease<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the Marburg virus disease?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the symptoms of Marburg virus disease?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How does it spread?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How can Marburg virus disease be diagnosed and treated?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Tanzania has announced its first outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus disease (MVD).<\/li>\n<li>This was after five people died and three others were infected with the virus in Tanzania\u2019s north-west Kagera region.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Marburg virus disease<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h2><strong>What is the Marburg virus disease?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>According to WHO, Marburg virus disease (MVD), earlier known as Marburg hemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal hemorrhagic fever.\n<ul>\n<li>It is a zoonotic virus that is initially transmitted from animals to humans.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Marburg, like Ebola, is a <strong>filovirus<\/strong>; and both diseases are clinically similar.<\/li>\n<li>Rousettus fruit bats are considered the natural hosts for the Marburg virus.\n<ul>\n<li>However, as per WHO, African green monkeys imported from Uganda were the source of the first human infection.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The disease has an average fatality rate of around 50%. However, it can be as low as 24% or as high as 88% depending on virus strain and case management.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the symptoms of Marburg virus disease?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>After the onset of symptoms, which can begin anytime between two to 21 days, MVD can manifest itself in the form of high fever, muscle aches and severe headache.<\/li>\n<li>Around the third day, patients report abdominal pain, vomiting, severe watery diarrhoea and cramping.\n<ul>\n<li>In this phase, the appearance of patients has been often described as \u201cghost-like\u201d with deep-set eyes, expressionless faces, and extreme lethargy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Between days five and seven, patients report bleeding from the nose, and gums and blood appearing in vomit and faeces.<\/li>\n<li>Severe blood loss leads to death, often between eight to nine days after symptoms begin.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How does it spread?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Marburg spreads through direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with infected people\u2019s blood, secretions, organs, or other body fluids.<\/li>\n<li>It also spreads through surfaces and objects (e.g., bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How can Marburg virus disease be diagnosed and treated?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is difficult to clinically distinguish MVD from diseases such as malaria, typhoid fever and other viral haemorrhagic fevers.<\/li>\n<li>However, it is confirmed by lab testing of samples, which like Coronavirus and Ebola are extreme biohazard risks.<\/li>\n<li>There is no approved antiviral treatment or vaccine for MVD as of now. It can be managed with supportive care.<\/li>\n<li>According to the WHO, rehydration with oral or intravenous fluids, and treatment of specific symptoms can help prevent death.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1)<\/strong> <strong>What is filovirus?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Filoviruses are a family of viruses that can cause severe hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates. They are named after their characteristic filamentous or &#8220;thread-like&#8221; appearance under an electron microscope.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2)\u00a0What is a virus?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>\u00a0A virus is a microscopic infectious agent that replicates itself inside living cells of organisms. Viruses are not considered living organisms, as they cannot survive or reproduce outside of a host cell. They are composed of genetic material, either DNA or RNA, surrounded by a protein coat called a capsid. Some viruses also have an outer envelope made of lipids.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-health\/marburg-virus-disease-outbreak-tanzania-explained-8519874\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Marburg virus disease outbreak kills five in Tanzania: What is this virus?<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/vhf\/marburg\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Centres for Disease Control and Prevention<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.news18.com\/explainers\/marburg-virus-deaths-africa-tanzania-spread-symptoms-explained-7388995.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>News18<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marburg virus is a zoonotic virus that is initially transmitted from animals to humans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}