The Marburg virus poses a great danger to people, as it has a high mortality rate. However, the probability that it will lead to a global epidemic, according to Olga Karpova, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Virology at the Faculty of Biology at Lomonosov Moscow State University, is small. Sanitary control and control of human migration will prevent this, Professor Olga explained in an interview with RT.
Marburg is in the same group of viruses as Ebola and also has no treatment or vaccines. Outbreaks of the disease have been recorded repeatedly, but remained local, Karpova explained. If Ebola was recorded mainly in Africa, then Marburg – in Central Europe.
The virus will not spread, since the countries where it is detected have a high level of medicine and sanitary control, which has repeatedly allowed them to overcome another outbreak, the doctor believes. She also added that today there is careful control over the migration of people from endemic regions.
“The likelihood that all this will turn into some kind of global epidemic… is hard to believe at the moment. I think that everything will be localized,” the virologist emphasized.
WHO had previously stated that after the first cases of the disease were confirmed in Rwanda, the world was threatened by an epidemic of the Marburg virus. According to the organization, the current outbreak is the fourth largest of all registered.
