The World Health Organisation (WHO) will in the coming days deploy a team of experts to assist Ghana fight the outbreak of the Marburg virus disease in the country.

The team will provide coordination, risk assessment, and infection prevention measures in support of ongoing investigations into the latest outbreak of the Marburg virus.

This comes on the back of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) confirming the first cases of the disease in the country.

According to the Service, this is the first time the disease has found its way into the populace.

In a statement issued on Sunday, July 17, the GHS explained that the presence of the virus was confirmed after it run a number of tests.

“Following the report of the preliminary finding of two cases of Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) from the Ashanti Region on 7th July 2022, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) wishes to announce that further testing at the Institute Pasteur in Dakar (IPD), Senegal has corroborated the results from Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research,” the GHS said in a press statement, signed by its Director-General  Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye on Sunday, July 17. 

The statement added that “following the confirmation of the cases, contact tracing has been expanded with the identification of more contacts being followed up for the maximum incubation period of 21 days. A reasonable number of contacts have been followed up for 19 days with none developing any symptoms. In addition, thirteen (13) of the contacts were randomly selected and tested at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research. All 13 contacts tested negative for Marburg Virus”.