Outbreak of Marburg virus ends in Equatorial Guinea– WHO

The World Health Organization's regional office for Africa announced on Thursday that the Marburg virus infection outbreak in Equatorial Guinea has come to an end.

The organization reported that 42 days after the final patient was released from the hospital following treatment, no new cases of Marburg, a lethal virus that is related to Ebola, were reported.

The outbreak, which was the first of its sort in Equatorial Guinea, was declared on February 13.

There were 17 instances with lab confirmation overall, including 12 deaths. According to the WHO, 23 further deaths from a possible Marburg infection were documented.

Equatorial Guinea's confirmation of the outbreak's conclusion comes after Tanzania made a comparable pronouncement last week.

In order to maintain measures like surveillance and testing and to enable quick action should the virus flare up, WHO said it is still working with Equatorial Guinea.

African fruit bats are thought to have been the source of the Marburg virus. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it was first discovered in 1967 among people who had been working with green monkeys that had been imported from Uganda in Germany and the former Yugoslavia.

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