Burundi: A unidentified disease, anticipated as a virus that causes nosebleed and reportedly kills the infected person within 24 hours, has claimed three lives in the north-eastern region of Burundi in West Africa.
Deadlier than Covid19: Africa sees new virus that kills within 24 hours, claims three in Burundi
The symptoms appear to point towards some sort of viral hemorrhagic fever, which damages the walls of tiny blood vessels making them leak, such as Marburg and Ebola. However, the health minister has already ruled out both the illnesses, a local report said.
The governor and the provincial physician in Kirundo are expecting the outcomes of samples collected by experts from the INSP (National Institute of Public Health) before making a decision.
The deceased individuals are reportedly from the Gitobe community. They both lived near Migwa hill in Baziro region. All the cases reported are from here, authorities reported.
“The symptoms include abdominal pain, nasal bleeding that worsens after death, acute headaches, high fever, vomiting, and dizziness,” said on-site observers.
A nurse who spoke with SOS Media Burundi said that this disease kills victims very fast.
“The illness kills very fast. The infected individual passes away within 24 hours,” she said.
The terrified nurse from the Migwa health centre in the Gashoho health district of Muyinga province, where patients were sent and two women perished there, exclaimed, “It’s terrible, we’re all waiting for death.
The deaths have caused a scare of the outbreak in the town so much so that the residents in Migwa reportedly blocked the entrances when the people of Baziro wanted to transport the third person, local platforms reported.
“As of now, the people living the two towns have been asked to stay home quarantined in order to contain,” she said.
“People in Kirundo’s urban core live in constant dread,” the nurse said, while requesting the government to announce the epidemic so that quick action can be taken.
This outbreak came soon after neighbouring country Tanzania announced an outbreak of Margburg for the first time, in which eight people developed symptoms and five died.
All cases were found in Tanzania’s northwest, which has a straight border with Burundi.
Following the announcement of its first-ever outbreak in February, Equatorial Guinea, in west Africa, verified eight more cases of the highly contagious bug last week.
According to the World Health Organization, the fact that the new cases were dispersed over three distinct provinces and a distance of almost 100 miles “suggests wider transmission of the virus.”
Since the cases were discovered in provinces that border other nations, “the risk of international spread cannot be ruled out,” according to a statement.
A medical investigation team was sent to southern Tanzania in July of last year to look into a mysterious disease called “nosebleed” that had killed three persons there.
Aifello Sichalwe, the top medical officer of the nation, declared in a statement that all patients had tested negative for the Covid, Marburg, and related viruses that are similar to Ebola.
The “strange” illness discovered in Lindi, according to Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan, may have been brought on by “growing interaction” between people and wild animals.
It would be a zoonotic disease if the virus had spread from an animal to people.
According to the WHO, zoonotic illnesses are becoming more and more of an issue in Africa.
