Rwanda National Guideline for Management of Marburg Virus Disease13-10-2024

Year of Publication: 2024

Background

Viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) refer to a group of epidemic prone diseases that are caused by several distinct families of highly infectious RNA viruses. These viruses are a major concern to global public health because of their potential as bioweapons and the possibility to cause outbreaks with high fatality rates. Global travel, trade, climate change, and changes in human behaviour have contributed to an increase in VHF outbreaks and emergence in new areas. As a result of climate change and shifting vector ranges, VHFs are spreading to new environments while threatening rural livelihoods and health. The emergence and re-emergence of VHFs pose a grave threat to human health due to their high mortality rates. Over the past century, more than 20 Ebola outbreaks have occurred globally, with the 2014-2016 outbreak in Western Africa that lasted 28 months, the outbreak resulted in 28 652 cases and 11 325 deaths. Of the dead, 518 (5%) were health-care workers. This highlights the need for robust public health systems and standardised data collection methods to track VHF trends, especially within seasonal contexts. In the East African region, VHFs like yellow fever, Rift Valley Fever (RVF), Marburg, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever
or Congo River (CCHF) and Ebola disease have caused significant outbreaks. A large RVF country-wide outbreak occurred in Rwanda in the year 2022, especially in the eastern and southern Provinces, affecting both human (cases:125, deaths: 22) and animal (cases: 1339, deaths: 516),