The Marburg virus disease (MVD) is severe and highly fatal. Albeit rare, MVD is an extremely contagious disease that causes outbreaks with a large number of fatalities. The disease is known have to spread in both in Europe and Africa, affecting a large swathe of different populations. The following nine facts provide details on MVD, one of the most dangerous viruses in the world.

1. The Marburg virus is named after Marburg, a small town in central Germany, where the disease was first detected in 1967. Traces of the disease were also found in Frankfurt, Germany and Belgrade, in what was formerly Yugoslavia.
2. However, the disease actually originates from Uganda. German workers at a laboratory in Marburg caught the disease from infected monkeys, which were imported from the African nation.
3. The virus is transmitted through direct contact with infected blood, bodily fluids or tissue, or the handling of ill or dead infected animals, usually wild.
4. Fatality rates fluctuate. In the outbreaks between 1998 and 2000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in 2005 in Angola, the fatality rate was as high as 90 percent. The initial outbreak in 1967 had only a 25 percent fatality rate.
5. The initial symptoms of the illness — mainly severe headaches and malaise — come on very suddenly. Patients can develop eye and nerve problems as well as severe hemorrhages as the illness progresses.
6. Treatment of the disease is mostly limited to supportive care.
7. The Marburg virus is classified as a Category A bio-warfare agent by the Center for Disease Control.
8. The Soviet Union experimented with MVD toward the end of the Cold War, in the 1980s and 1990s, in an attempt to develop a potent biological weapon. Reports claim that Soviet scientists were hoping to load the disease onto a warhead.
9. Roughly 80 nanometers to 800 nanometers long, the virus can be killed with heat, ultra-violet light and disinfectants such as bleach and Glutaral.

Although there have been no recent outbreaks of the disease, it warrants great caution, particularly in nations with underdeveloped infrastructures for health and treatment. As the statistics of the last outbreaks in Africa evince, fatality rates have proven to be extremely high. The Marburg virus is extremely dangerous and highly contagious, which gives it the potential to do irreparable damage to the population. The international community must be attentive to this disease and ready to help nations who detect the MVD within their borders.

– Alan Garcia-Ramos

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