Marburg Virus VS Ebola Virus, Which one is more dangerous?

Both the Ebola and Marburg viruses cause a large proportion of victims to pass away. The viruses may cause when the illnesses worsen. Let’s see Ebola vs Marburg viruses.

What are Ebola and Marburg viruses?

The Marburg virus is the most harmful one. Although it is named after a little, picture-perfect hamlet on the Lahn River, the disease itself has nothing to do with the town.

Hemorrhagic fever is caused by the Marburg virus. Similar to Ebola, the Marburg virus causes convulsions and bleeds in the skin, organs, and mucous membranes.

Ebola vs Marburg viruses

The majority of previous Marburg and Ebola virus epidemics started in sub-Saharan Central and West Africa.

Past outbreaks have been irregular and uncommon; they have been mostly contained because they have happened in remote locations. When it does, it usually happens as a result of visitors returning from Africa.

But in 1967, laboratory staff exposed to imported green monkey tissues in Germany and Yugoslavia had a small Marburg hemorrhagic fever outbreak.

Ebola Viruses                             

Marburg Virus

Transmission

In sub-Saharan Africa, exposure to nonhuman primates is a factor in the majority of index cases. Although the Marburg virus has been found in bats and cases have occurred in individuals exposed to bats, the exact vector and reservoir are unknown (eg, in mines or caves).

Ebola virus epidemics have been related to eating bush meat or bat soup cooked from wild animals in the afflicted areas. After handling tissues from infected animals, infections with the Ebola and Marburg viruses have also happened.

The spread of filoviruses is very common. Skin and mucous membrane contact with bodily fluids (saliva, blood, vomit, urine, stool, perspiration, breast milk, semen) of an infected symptomatic person or, less frequently, a nonhuman primate, results in human-to-human transmission. Until they show symptoms, people are not contagious.

Typically, those who survive the virus completely eradicate it and stop spreading it; however, the Ebola virus may continue to exist in some immune-privileged areas (eye, brain, testes). Sexual transmission from survivors to susceptible people is suspected. The virus may re-emerge from these places and induce late sequelae or relapse.

Up to 7 weeks following clinical recovery, Marburg virus transmission via infected semen has been recorded. Genetic remnants of the Ebola virus lingered in the semen of 63% of men who recovered from the disease for a year or longer. PCR assays, however, are unable to reveal the presence of a live, contagious Ebola virus.

Symptoms

The Marburg and Ebola virus infections share many of the same symptoms.

Fever, myalgia, and headache appear after a 2 to 20-day incubation period, and upper respiratory symptoms, nausea, and stomach pain are frequently present as well (cough, chest pain, pharyngitis). Additionally seen are photophobia, conjunctival injection, jaundice, and lymphadenopathy. There may shortly be diarrhoea and vomiting. Coma, stupor, and delirium are possible symptoms that point to central nervous system involvement.

Within the first several days, petechiae, ecchymoses, and frank bleeding around puncture sites and mucosal membranes are examples of hemorrhagic signs. Around day 5, a maculopapular rash that mostly affects the trunk appears.

The development of severe hypovolemia can be caused by extensive fluid loss as a result of vomiting and diarrhoea

Capillary leakage, which causes hypoalbuminemia and causes the intravascular space to lose fluid

Treatment

There are now two monoclonal antibody medications available to treat Ebola virus infections brought on by the Zaire ebolavirus. These are mAb114 and REGN-EB3.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the combination of three monoclonal antibodies known as REGN-EB3 in October 2020. A single monoclonal antibody called mAb114, the second medication, received approval in December 2020.

During the Ebola outbreak in the DRC from 2018 to 2020, both of these therapies were shown to be effective, with cure rates of about 90% in patients with low virus levels.

This is a considerable improvement over earlier experimental Ebola medications when compared to a death rate that is thought to be over 70% in untreated and unvaccinated patients.

There is still no cure for the infection caused by the Marburg virus unless the two monoclonal antibodies or additional ones are demonstrated to neutralise the virus.

Precaution

There are numerous Ebola vaccines undergoing clinical testing. The FDA authorised rVSV-ZEBOV in December 2019 for the prevention of Zaire ebolavirus disease in people 18 years of age and older. It was effectively employed on a small scale at the end of the 2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa and on a larger scale in the 2018 outbreak in the DRC. A second novel vaccine delivered in 2 doses, Ad26.ZEBOV and MVA-BN-Filo, was given marketing approval by the European Medicines Agency in 2020 for the prevention of Ebola virus disease in people 1 year of age and older.

Patients with potential Ebola or Marburg virus infections must be separated in special containment facilities in order to stop the spread of the disease.

Public hospital intensive care units (ICUs) are not appropriate. Fluid effluent and respiratory products can be completely controlled with the use of special containment structures.

The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that patients who have had either infection and their sex partners abstain from all forms of sex or use condoms appropriately and consistently until one of the following occurs:

Unless the virus is ruled out by 2 tests
Until 12 months have passed since the commencement of the symptoms, if testing is not available.

Marburg: Is it more harmful than Ebola?

The Marburg virus is marginally more virulent than the Ebola virus.

Although the Marburg and Ebola viruses are distinct from one another, they both induce clinically comparable illnesses marked by hemorrhagic fevers and capillary leakage. The Marburg virus is marginally more virulent than the Ebola virus.

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