A team of doctors and health experts has been dispatched to investigate a mysterious nosebleed disease in southern Tanzania that has killed three people.
Symptoms of the illness include fever, headache, fatigue and nosebleeds, Aifello Sichalwe, the government’s chief physician, said in a statement on Wednesday.
So far, 13 cases have been registered in the southeastern region of Lindi and at least three people have died.
The symptoms indicate a type of viral hemorrhagic fever, a form of illness that can damage the walls of small blood vessels in the victim, causing them to leak. Four such viruses have been identified by the World Health Organization as “priority pathogens” with epidemic or pandemic potential: Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, Marburg and Ebola.
But the patients tested negative for two major hemorrhagic viruses in the region – Ebola and Marburg – according to Mr Sichalwe. They also tested negative for Covid-19. One patient has reportedly recovered and the others are still in isolation.
The cases come after Ghana first discovered the Marburg virus last week, among two deceased patients, creating a rush to identify potential contacts and contain the outbreak before it spreads. It is only the second time the disease has been discovered in West Africa.
On Tuesday, Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said a mysterious nosebleed disease may have developed as a result of the “growing interaction” between humans and wildlife due to environmental degradation.
Experts around the world have warned that population growth, the booming economies of previously undeveloped countries, human encroachment on jungles and forests, and the growth of the wildlife trade are all stimulating the accelerated spread of new and existing viruses – with some describing the 21st century as a new “pandemic era”.
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