Rwanda says at least eight people have died from the Ebola-like, highly contagious Marburg virus, just days after the country declared an outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever that has no authorised vaccine or treatment.

Like Ebola, the Marburg virus originates in fruit bats and spreads among people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces, such as contaminated bedsheets.

Rwanda, a landlocked country in central Africa, declared an outbreak on Friday.

So far, 26 cases have been confirmed, and eight of the sickened people have died, Health Minister Sabin Nsanzimana said late on Sunday.

The public has been urged to avoid physical contact to help curb the spread, but some 300 people who came into contact with those confirmed to have the virus have also been identified.

An unspecified number of them have been put in isolation facilities and most of the affected are healthcare workers across six out of 30 districts in the country.

“Marburg is a rare disease,” Nsanzimana told journalists. “We are intensifying contact tracing and testing to help stop the spread.”

The minister said the source of the disease has not been determined, adding that a person infected with the virus can take between three days and three weeks to show symptoms.

Symptoms include fever, muscle pains, diarrhoea, vomiting and, in some cases, death through extreme blood loss.

WHO monitoring situation

The World Health Organization is scaling up its support and will work with Rwandan authorities to help stop the spread, WHO’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Saturday on the social media platform X.

Marburg outbreaks and individual cases have in the past been recorded in Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Ghana, according to the WHO.

The rare virus was first identified in 1967 after it caused simultaneous outbreaks of disease in laboratories in Marburg, Germany, and Belgrade, Serbia. Seven people died who were exposed to the virus while conducting research on monkeys.

Separately, Rwanda has reported six cases of mpox, a disease caused by a virus related to smallpox but that typically causes milder symptoms.

Mpox has also affected several other African countries in what the WHO has declared a global health emergency.

Rwanda launched an mpox vaccination campaign earlier this month, and more vaccines are expected to arrive in the country.