The Marburg virus, which kills up to nine in 10 people it infects through horrific bleeding from body orifices, could soon reach Britain, infectious disease experts have warned.
The risk lies in the ‘silent’ incubation period which can last up to a month – meaning patients could be infected but not know it, and could potentially pass it on to others.
Those at this stage of the infection could easily board a plane to Britain and become ill after arriving, experts say.
Professor Paul Hunter, a renowned infectious disease expert from the University of East Anglia, said international travel links allowed the Marburg virus to be easily imported from Rwanda, the heart of the current outbreak, to countries such as Britain .
Cases of the Marburg virus, which kills up to 9 in 10 people it infects through horrific bleeding from its orifices, could easily reach Britain, infectious disease experts say.
The Marburg virus, a relative of Ebola, causes people to bleed from their body orifices and kills up to 9 in 10 of those infected.
“The incubation period is between five and 15 days, long enough for someone to get on a plane and fly anywhere in the world,” he said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the situation in Rwanda as ‘major concern’, adding that there is a high risk of the outbreak spreading to other countries.
However, Professor Hunter said that even if the virus reached Britain it was unlikely to spread unchecked due to access to better infection control procedures and highly trained British staff and well-equipped facilities dealing with such diseases.
He also told MailOnline that patients only become highly contagious in the final, more severe stages of the disease, when they bleed from their body orifices.
Professor Hunter added that any UK outbreaks, should they occur, would likely be limited to households where people are around.
People infected with Marburg virus typically experience flu-like symptoms between three to 10 days after exposure to the pathogen, although cases lasting up to four weeks have been reported.
Five to seven days afterwards, patients progress to a haemorrhagic fever that causes bleeding from the body orifices and which the Marburg virus has given the name ‘eye haemorrhages’.
It is this bleeding, caused by the virus damaging the body’s organs, that makes the pathogen one of the deadliest known to man, with some outbreaks killing 88 percent of patients.
Police cordoned off tracks seven and eight at Hamburg station for several hours and travelers were cleared from the platforms after emergency services boarded the ICE from Frankfurt in full protective suits amid fears two passengers may have had the Marburg virus
However, Professor Hunter has stressed that the death rate from African outbreaks of the virus in Europe is unlikely to be as high due to better access to healthcare.
But even at the lower end of estimates, the virus still kills about half of the people it infects.
By comparison, Covid had only killed about 3 percent of infected people when it first arrived on the scene.
In Rwanda, where an outbreak was declared last week, the virus has already infected at least 36 people, killing 11, while more than 400 more are at risk of exposure.
The majority of fatalities are among health workers exposed to the sick during the early stages of the outbreak, Rwandan officials say.
Fears that the virus had already reached Europe arose yesterday after two passengers on a train at Hamburg station in Germany fell ill with a suspected Marburg virus.
One of the two in question was a doctor medical student who had recently returned from Rwanda.
However, local media reports that the pair have now tested negative for the virus, although they will continue to be monitored for the next 21 days as a precaution.
There were also reports that another case of Marburg had been discovered in Belgium.
MVD has a mortality rate of up to 88 percent. There are currently no vaccines or treatments approved to treat the virus
Authorities have since clarified that a person thought to be at risk was asked to quarantine but has since passed the incubation period without becoming ill.
The Marburg virus is initially spread to humans from bats, which naturally harbor the virus.
Exposure typically occurs in mines or caves where people work, although the source of the Rwandan outbreak has not yet been determined.
From there, the first cases can infect other people, with the virus spreading through contaminated bodily fluids, including those left on clothing and bedding.
Sexual transmission of the virus can also occur, with research showing it can remain viable in semen for up to seven weeks after a patient’s recovery.
Even the bodies of the dead can still transmit the infection.
UK health chiefs are currently being asked for companies to carry out extra surveillance of workers traveling or visiting Rwanda.
They have also issued a warning to British travelers to Rwanda, which has direct flights between the capital Kiglai, where most cases have been recorded, and British airports.
There are currently no vaccines or treatments available for the Marburg virus, meaning doctors are instead focusing on helping patients survive the infection.
However, a number of potential jabs are currently being trialled, including in Britain.
Rwanda is poised to start using some of these experimental jabs and drugs as part of clinical trials amid the ongoing outbreak.
A similar policy of using vaccines and drugs in development has been used in previous Ebola outbreaks in an attempt to save the lives of people directly exposed to known cases.
Rwandan Assistant Health Minister Yvan Butera said his country was preparing to distribute such products to the population, but without providing details on what exactly will be tested.
Marburg virus (MVD) is initially transmitted to humans from fruit bats and spreads among humans through direct contact with the body fluids of infected people, surfaces and materials.
“About to start vaccine and therapeutic clinical trials to protect risk groups,” he wrote on social media.
In terms of cases, the Rwandan outbreak is approaching the size of those in 2023 in Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania, which infected 49 people, 41 of whom died, and was the largest in a decade.
However, the situation pales in comparison to the 2004-2005 Angolan Marburg virus outbreak, the largest ever recorded, with 374 recorded cases, 329 of which were fatal.
The Angolan outbreak was believed to have been exacerbated by civil unrest in the country at the time.
WHO officials have said they currently advise against any travel and trade restrictions against Rwanda amid the ongoing virus outbreak.
In previous outbreaks, cases of the Marburg virus have emerged in countries such as the Netherlands and the US among travelers from affected countries.
However, such cases have never occurred in Britain, although experts say it is possible.
Most Marburg virus outbreaks disappear after a few people are infected. For this reason, experts say it is unlikely to cause a pandemic.
The Marburg virus was first discovered in 1967 when outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever occurred simultaneously in laboratories in Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany and in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia).
Infections were eventually traced to three laboratories that received a shared shipment of infected African green monkeys for research.
Previous outbreaks have been observed in Equatorial Guinea, Tanzania, Cameroon, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.