Marburg disease causes horrible symptoms and has a nearly 90 percent fatality rate (Image: Getty)
Experts are worried amid the outbreak of an “eye-bleeding disease” that has spread to Europe.
from an incurable Ebola-like virus in Rwanda, Africa.
The virus, called Marburg, is a “highly virulent disease that causes haemorrhagic fever, with a fatality ratio of up to 88 percent”, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says.
According to reports, the nine European cases are in Belgium.
Most of the cases reported so far have involved healthcare workers in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.
Kigali has a population of 1.2million people, meaning the disease could spread quickly.
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The disease is passed to humans from fruit bats (Image: Getty)
Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, told : “The incubation period is between five and 15 days, plenty long enough for someone to get on a plane and fly anywhere in the world.
The incubation period of a virus is the time between exposure to the virus and the onset of symptoms.
The WHO said “appropriate response measures have been implemented” by Rwandan authorities.
Hospital visits have been banned in Kigali and the US Embassy is telling its staff to work remotely.
The Marburg virus spreads to humans from fruit bats via direct contact with bodily fluids like blood, saliva, and mucus.
The disease is spreading in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital (Image: Getty)
It can cause symptoms such as high fever, intense headaches, muscle pain, diarrhoea, and vomiting.
Marburg outbreaks typically only lead to no more than ten cases, with only two surpassing the 100 mark.
The WHO adds: “Human infection with Marburg virus disease initially results from prolonged exposure to mines or caves inhabited by Rousettus bat colonies.
“Once an individual is infected with the virus, Marburg can spread through human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids.”