In Germany, the evacuation of a train station due to the outbreak of a deadly virus
A boy and a girl have caused panic in Germany because they are suspected of being infected with the Marburg virus, which causes fever, muscle cramps, bloody vomiting and diarrhea, and a mortality rate of up to 88 percent.
The police in Hamburg urgently evacuated the passengers from the train, which arrived from Frankfurt, due to the suspicion that two people on the train were infected with the Marburg virus.
It is about a young man and a girl with symptoms similar to a severe cold, the Tagesau portal reported.
Two people from Rwanda boarded a train in Germany while being infected with the deadly Marburg virushttps://t.co/RGZANnxMoF
— Lilly inLondon (@Lillyin_London) October 2, 2024
The two exits from the station in Hamburg were immediately closed, and firefighters also went to the field. The young man did not have a fever, and his girlfriend was vomiting on the train.
German portal Morgenpost reported that the couple arrived by plane directly from Rwanda on Wednesday morning.
A representative of the fire service told Bild that the 26-year-old and his girlfriend developed flu-like symptoms during the trip. He added that the patients said that during their stay in Africa they treated a man who was later confirmed to be infected with the Marburg virus.
The student and his girlfriend were immediately transferred to the Eppendorf University Hospital, which specializes in tropical diseases. Their luggage was confiscated.
Rwanda is currently battling an outbreak of the Marburg virus, which has claimed eight lives so far, the BBC reported. Marburg virus is transmitted by a type of bat (fruit bat), but it can also be transmitted from person to person through blood and unprotected sex.
According to data from the World Health Organization, the death rate from that virus is as high as 88 percent, reports Politico. This virus causes fever, muscle pain, diarrhea, vomiting and, in many cases, death from extreme blood loss.
It is thought to be of the same strain as the equally deadly Ebola virus, and as reported by the WHO, the Marburg virus was first identified after 31 people were infected and seven of them died in simultaneous outbreaks in 1967 in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany. and Belgrade, Serbia.
The source of the outbreak was originally linked to African green monkeys imported from Uganda. But in the meantime, the virus is also being linked to other animals, for example the fruit bat. Among the human species, it is mainly transmitted by humans, who have long resided in caves and mines inhabited by bats.
Currently, an epidemic of this virus is registered in Ghana, but it has already broken out in a number of African countries, including: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
More than 300 people died in the 2005 outbreak in Angola. Only one person has died in Europe in the last 40 years – and one in the US, after returning from a cave expedition in Uganda.
The World Health Organization states that on average, the virus kills half of those infected, and that the most harmful types kill up to 88 percent of those infected.