Thailand has not imposed a travel ban on vacationers from Equatorial Guinea despite the outbreak of the highly infectious Marburg Virus Disease (MVD), a deadly virus just like Ebola.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported the first-ever outbreak of MVD on Monday, February 13, in Equatorial Guinea. Nine people have died and 200 high-risk people have been quarantined, reported Thai PBS.
According to Equatorial Guinea Health Minister Mitoha Ondo’o Ayekaba, the deaths are believed to be connected to a funeral that occurred in the Nsok Nsomo district in the Kie-Ntem province.
The local health authorities first reported cases of hemorrhagic fever of unknown origin on February 7, and samples were despatched to a laboratory in Senegal. The WHO confirmed that one of the samples tested optimistic for MVD. Contact tracing is being carried out, and suspected cases are being isolated and handled.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said…
“Thanks to the speedy and decisive action by the Equatorial Guinean authorities in confirming the disease, emergency response can get to full steam shortly.”
Fruit bats are believed to be massive spreaders of MVD.
Thailand’s Disease Control Department instructed worldwide disease control checkpoints in any respect ports of entry into the nation to screen all arrivals from nations presently reported to be affected by MVD as a precautionary measure, although the department didn’t reveal how they might impose it given hundreds of vacationers are actually flooding via the kingdom’s worldwide airports.
Expert reported the WHO had recorded one other two cases, plus forty two extra likely circumstances, in Cameroon, which borders Equatorial Guinea.
“In Thailand, MVD is classed as considered one of thirteen harmful infectious illnesses, in accordance with the Infectious Diseases Act, though the illness has not yet been detected in the country.”
Dr Sophon Iamsirithavorn, the Deputy Director-General of the Department of Disease Control in Thailand, stated that no travel bans have been imposed on Equatorial Guinea or Cameroon. However, screening measures have been heightened for travellers arriving from these African nations. If an incoming passenger is suspected of getting an an infection, well being officers will take fluid samples for testing and inform the individual of the outcomes within three hours.
Symptoms of the an infection can happen quickly, inside two to 21 days after publicity. Early signs include fever, chills, headache, and muscle ache. Around 5 days after the onset of symptoms, a maculopapular rash could seem, particularly on the trunk of the physique. Other symptoms might embody nausea, vomiting, chest pain, sore throat, stomach ache, and diarrhoea. The disease can progress to extra extreme signs corresponding to jaundice, pancreatitis, significant weight loss, delirium, shock, liver failure, massive bleeding, and multi-organ failure.
MVD can have a fatality price of up to 88%, based on the WHO. There aren’t any vaccines or antiviral treatments permitted to deal with it..